Community Project
Sin Título
The premise of the artistic work meetings that were organized with the Center for Autistic Children of Puerto Escondido and with the C.A.M. Rio Grande was to think of art as a social bond, as a form of conversation. Working in relation to the scope of what is called “disability” can be an excuse to question the normality that oppresses us many times.
Knowing both educational spaces and thinking about their shortcomings and potential in relation to the specific context of the Oaxaca Coast made me reinforce the conviction that it is necessary to consolidate artistic and educational workspaces freed from time and normative expectations.
What can happen when these conversations through art do not necessarily pass through standardized language and question stigma and diagnosis? In those moments, the power of smiles, of complicit glances, the power of shyness, the possibility of expressing with other parts of the body, imitating or rejecting the gesture proposed by the other emerges. Think with your hands, elbows, knees. Invent a language just for us. Do things that only exist for a while. Think anyway. I don’t even think. It is about assuming one’s own vulnerability as the setting and starting point of our sensitivity and thinking.
With the children and youth who participated in these meetings, indefinable momentary ties were generated, relationships that defy the limits of language, art, education and inclusion. Beyond pointing and measuring our specific objectives and the scope of our production, I personally remain with the deep experience of being together, knowing ourselves, under a tree, with our hands full of dirt, trying to navigate that mysterious sea of what we can have in common.
In conclusion of these workshops I remain with the certainty, commitment and invitation of what is important in these initiatives is STAY, REMAIN AND DO THINGS. No more no less.