ARTSPEAK RADIO with Torres, Garcia, Van Tuyl, and Ward-Bopp

Wednesday July 17. 2019 noon – 1pm CST, 90.1fm KKFI Kansas City Community Radio www.kkfi.org

Producer/host Maria Vasquez Boyd invites Bernadette Esperanza Torres, Israel Alejandro Garcia Garcia, Sandra Van Tuyl, and Nick Ward-Bopp into the studio to discuss their work.

NICK WARD-BOPP, Maker Village-We are a community wood + metal workshop in a century old building at 31st & Cherry. Can’t afford a class or event that you are interested in? We might be able to trade some sweat-equity, contact us at: [email protected].
Maker Village is located at 606 E 31st St Kansas City, Missouri

ISRAEL ALEXJANDRO GARCIA GARCIA-Artist, photographer, designer, gallery owner joins for this discussion, BERNADETTE ESPERANZA TORRES-“Reflections of Hope”- Bernadette Esperanza Torres a latina on the move with her first solo exhibit in KCMO, come see this amazing body of work and be part of the raffle that will give a lucky art lover a chance to take one of her pieces home. All proceeds to benefit Bordes Carnosos / Border Carnage a living sculpture exploring the immigrant experience past, present and future… That will begin to travel KCMO and KCK neighborhoods beginning this fall.

Help fund the implementation of an evolving traveling exhibit documenting the immigrant experience, by donating $20, each $20 donation will consist of one entry for a chance to win “Loving Support” a figurative sculpture by artist/educator Bernadette Esperanza Torres exhibiting during her first solo exhibit in KC “Reflections of Hope” at Garcia Squared Contemporary JUN 7th-OCT 18th 2019. The two-phase funding will go towards Border Carnage educational programing and exhibit that will include archival histories from multiple KC Latinx neighborhoods which have inevitable, painful ties to the borderlands of today. It will investigate how Latinx peoples secure and maintain their cultural identity in a hostile environment, and explore the fight against gentrification, ‘border walls’ and systematic segregation. To educate communities by giving some viewers a glimpse into the ‘other’ and exposing diverse populations in ‘art deserts’ to Latinx narratives.

Garcia Squared Contemporary 115 W 18th St, Kansas City, Missouri 64108

SANDRA VAN TUYL-ArtsKC Inspiration Grants are an investment in human capital, providing direct support to individual artists and arts professionals for projects and activities that have the potential to advance their careers and build their capacity for future work. These projects exemplify risk, growth, and change. Visual, music, theatre, literary, dance and interdisciplinary projects are the primary focus of Inspiration Grants.

Sandra Van Tuyl’s 1000 Footsteps Tell the Story; video documentation of refugees telling their journey stories is an ArtsKC Inspiration Grant recipient. Sandra Van Tuyl curates 1000 Footsteps Tell the Story, a traveling art exhibit about the current refugee crisis using journey story quilts, portraits, written words, and art focused on local families. A successful exhibition was held at Woodneath Library in Liberty, Missouri. Professional videographer Julie Denesha took the photo portraits of several refugees. A traveling exhibit in Nebraska is planned in 2019-2020. To enhance the exhibition, Van Tuyl is enlisting Denesha to film and edit recordings of refugee journey stories, with lighting and backgrounds that match the photographs, for a sense of consistency. Journey stories strengthen the audience’s understanding of the experiences depicted in the quilts. Videos will five minutes long, and consist of talk about a quilt and why certain images are important. Stories tend to begin about the person’s country of origin, where they lived, what they did, the conflict that forced them to leave, some time in camps, and finally their arrival and experience in America. Van Tuyl collaborates with the nonprofit Once We Were Refugees, who helped families make their story quilts, to identify those who want to record their stories. Van Tuyl will coordinate approval, permissions and compensation for filming, hire translators if needed, do transcription, and make the videos available in the gallery on tablets and on audio. Van Tuyl emphasizes that great care is taken to protect the subjects: interviews will take place in a public location, that last names are not exposed, and that only first names and country of origin will be used, in order to protect against retribution to family members. Van Tuyl believes that allowing audiences to see and hear firsthand the voices of people impacted by the refugee crisis is important for the lives and future of Kansas City. Grant funds will be used for video shooting, editing, lighting, and potential translator needs. https://sandravantuyl.com/home.html

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