In a time when Latino communities across the nation are facing mounting hostility and erasure, a new art exhibit in downtown Ithaca is offering a space for radical visibility and joy. In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, the Latino Civic Association of Tompkins County is proudly presenting an expansive exhibit of local Latino artists in partnership with the Ithaca Community School of Music and Arts. The LCA’s exhibit is far more than just another art show; rather it is a reminder, in the midst of news of violence against immigrants, unjust deportations and ICE raids, that Latinos and immigrants are not the “criminals” and “thugs” the government claims them to be, but people and sometimes artists too. In the face of political fearmongering and systemic violence, the LCA’s exhibit works to demonstrate how creation is used as a form of defiance and cultural resistance for many Latinos and immigrants.
Among the many standout artists featured in the gallery is Sarah Lopez, a Polish-Mexican fiber painter native to the Finger Lakes region. From afar, Lopez’s work resembles traditional oil paintings, as its waves of bright color twist and melt into dreamlike silhouettes, but if you take a moment to step closer, each and every strand of yarn becomes visible. Placed with painstaking care onto canvas, Lopez’s hand-dyed and hand-spun yarn challenges our traditional expectations of what a painting is. The specific work featured in the LCA’s gallery works to provide, as Lopez explains, “an intimate look into [her] meandering journey of processing grief and anger that comes from existing in an oppressive society that often uses violence to control its most vulnerable populations.” This journey is made clear as each of her pieces hum with emotion and work to thread together a story of survival and belonging.
Just across the gallery room is Ana Florencia Ulloa’s “Teocalli” which works to capture the delicate and differing experiences between sanctuary and exposure. A self-described “multilingual, hyper-verbal, multimodal artist,” Ulloa’s work is made up of two curtains, both over two meters long, that spill across the wall like a sunbeam and are layered with panels of papel picado in brilliant shades of teal, lime and orange. “Teocalli,” which is named in the indigenous language Nahuatl and translates in English to “home,” “attempts to symbolize sanctuary within while trying to shut the world out,” as Ulloa describes in her artist statement.
Meanwhile, in the basement of the gallery, an entirely different form of magic awaits. Damaris Vasquez, a multidisciplinary artist and Reiki master, has transformed the lower gallery of the CSMA into a total blacklight wonderland. Visitors are handed 3D glasses upon entry, and for good reason, as the glowing portraits seem to pulse and leap at you from the walls through its lenses. Rendered in fluorescent, phosphorescent and metallic acrylics, Vasquez’s work centers the body as a spiritual vessel and a political site. “We are in collaboration with the Great Spirit,” Vasquez describes, “moving with as much love, joy, magic and meaning as possible.” Her work takes back the autonomy that is often stripped from women while also radiating a profound vulnerability of the self.
The work of curator and artist Loreto Molina, also known as Painting Mujeres in the Ithaca art scene, is also featured in the LCA’s exhibit. A self-taught Chilean artist, Molina’s practice celebrates the stories of women through the gaze of a woman, a very deliberate counterpoint to centuries of male-dominated representation and storytelling. Her delicate 4x4 embroidered series, “Hilos de Memoria,” which translates to English as “Threads of Memory,” features six interconnected pieces: “Hogar / Home,” “Raíz / Root,” “Latido / Heartbeat,” “Encuentro / Encounter,” “Recuerdo / Memory,” and “Canto / Song.” The soft pastels and tender stitching of the six pieces evoke a deep feeling of intimacy and interconnection — remove one of the six from the series, and the story Molina is telling feels incomplete. Together, humming with the rhythms of daily life, they are asking us to imagine a world where women, particularly Latina women, are centered.
LCA’s exhibit, featuring more than 15 local Latino artists, is a testament to the vibrancy and diversity of Latinidad in upstate New York. Each work within the gallery tells a unique story: stories of migration, of motherhood, of survival and most importantly, of joy. In a world highly defined by division and discrimination, LCA’s featured artists work to remind us that heritage is meant to be celebrated and protected despite all attempts of erasure. So, I highly urge all Cornellians to take the short walk into the Commons to see and feel the radical joy and resistance that is present in the gallery.
Jointly curated by local artists Yen Ospina and Loreto Molina, the exhibit is set to run through Nov. 22, with a reception scheduled on Nov. 7, from 5 to 8 p.m., and the closing reception on Nov. 21, from 5 to 7 p.m.
Leslie Monter-Casio is a sophomore in the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. They can be reached at lm953@cornell.edu.
