BUSCANDO
AMERICA - IN SEARCH OF AMERICA
In
a recent exhibtion, entitled Buscando America, (In Search of America)
Jan sought to bring together different areas of research carried out
in Mexico, Cuba and Costa Rica and to challenge the Scottish perception
of "America"and to build a bridge between popular culture
in Latin America and Scotland.
The
work was exhibited at both Fringe Gallery, Castlemilk, Glasgow and Out
of the Blue in Edinburgh.
The
Cuban part of the exihibition featured work based on traditional music;
portraits of veteran singers and musicians both in woodcuts and photographs.
There were also field recordings made in Cuba. This part of the exhibition
took on the form of Casa de la Trova form (Cuba's Houses of
Music).
   
The
Mexican part of the exhibition took the form of woodcut portraits of
popular artists from Mexico, from Mexico City, Metepec, Olinalà,
Sierra Norte de Puebla and the Coast of Guerrero. She recorded video
of images from the San Isidro Labarador celebrations, the Paseo de
los Locos procession in Metepec.
  
A
part of the exhibition was dedicated to Latin American trade unionists
who have been murdered. This took the form of an offering, tradtional
in Mexico on the1st and 2nd November fro the Days of the Dead, and this
was dedicated to Cesar Herrera, of the SITRAINAGRO banana workers' union
in Colombia. There was also text based collaboration with some of his
colleauges in Costa Rica.
   
An
event coincided with the exhibiton's time in Glasgow, which looked trade
unionism, commodites and trade with contributions from Glasgow based
poet, Gerry Loose and Mike Gonzalez from Latin American Studies, University
of Glasgow.
MEMORIAS
GRABADAS - RECORDED MEMORIES
An
exhibition of work that records people who Jan met during journeys through
various Latin American countries including new works that portray banana
plantation workers and trade unionists from Costa Rica and Ecuador.
The exhibition will be at Artlink's gallery at St John's Hospital in
Lvingston between Dec 2003 and March 2004.
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