Entre el Silencio; Meditations on Silence

Xavier Robles Armas, Curator

Photography is a practice of magic. Sometimes one never knows what will come from it or the impact it can have on the world and each other. Yet it always finds its way into our spirit and shapes our understanding of who we are. In a similar way it reveals a type of psychosocial truth about the photographer or the person being photographed or both. The selection of Mexican and Mexican-American artists speak through the ordinary, quiet, yet fantastical nature of image making. Embedded in the photographs are histories of the place, ghostly memories, ritual, and contemplation.The group of photographers in the exhibition underscore themes of absence that demand to be understood in their quietness. 

A healthy practice of photography is a relational practice that asks the receiver to see, understand and to ask. In a way photography also asks of the photographer to offer meaning to a world that oftentimes may feel as if it lacks sense. Yet it is those around us, our family, our homes and our loved ones that help give our bodies at work meaning. Our loved ones offer time for contemplation with them and even after when they are no longer with us. They are personal immediate reminders that we exist and that our life has meaning with them. In attempting to make sense of the world alongside their loved ones, the photographers showing in the exhibition ask what does one make with silence, rest, and stillness. How do we find ourselves back into our bodies by resting and reflecting the ghostly memories that we embody? 

Artist Jennifer Teresa Villanueva has spent almost ten years photographing her grandma in her Chicago home. Her image title Abuelita antes el espejo (Abuelita piensa en evitar otra visita al hospital) / Abuelita before the mirror (Abuelita thinking about avoiding another hospital visit), 2022 is a testament of power, resilience and recovery. We see her grandma sitting looking at herself in the mirror. A simple act yet holds much power when we look closely into Villanueva’s title here she alludes to a health struggle her grandma may be overcoming or has lived with all her life. Yet regardless as a photographer Villanueva is able to spend time with her grandma in making this photograph and become a remedy for her. Here, spending quality time with her and encouraging a form of stillness becomes a way of nourishment for Villanueva and her grandma. The portrait of her grandma speaks to the possibilities of recognition of the self and allowing rest to move us into our own bodies. What does it mean to sit and look at yourself in the mirror? 

Moreover Itzel Basualdo’s image titled My parents in their hotel room taken in 2019 offers a different type of meaning on contemplation. The title here implies a type of leisure that her parents are able to afford, which in challenging times leisure and rest is key. Here Basualdo’s silent image demands a type of attention that oftentimes can go missed. Two figures sit in the middle of the bed looking into a bright light coming into the room. What is the light that is orienting them into the horizon? Perhaps in contemplating along with the figures we can find some sort of answers. What does one do with light when confronted with it in a still room? Similarly a flash of light draws our attention in Odette Chavez-Mayo’s image titled Todos Los Santos. An image she took while in Mexico caring for her grandma. While different to that of Basualdo’s, this ominous light draws immediate attention to the night stand surrounded by Catholic saints. A familiar sight is enchanted by the spark and overexposure in the photograph. Yet in a similar way it offers for a space of introspection and awareness of sight that leads one into our own body. 

Ultimately the artists in the show shine light on a range of topics that speak to the Mexican and Mexican-American experience of place and the life changing experiences that enable us to shift our awareness to contemplation reflection and a silence that often times demands attention, highlights pain and healing even after arriving to a country that can care less whether we’re dead or alive. However these artists make room for absence through the light and aspirations that we collectively hold onto together with our loved ones. 

Daniela López Amézquita, born and raised in Mexico, is a lens-based storyteller living in the Bronx. She has worked with many cultural institutions such as the Cineteca Nacional de México, the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, and the Orquesta Filarmónica de la Ciudad de México. She graduated from the New Media Narratives One Year Course at the International Center of Photography (ICP). She is currently a teaching artist at the Bronx Documentary Center, where she received a fellowship to produce her first short documentary, “Tú te quedaste,” a film about absent fathers in Mexico, a project that also received the EnFoco Media Arts Work in Progress Fund. Her work focuses on women’s experiences, migration, and identity, to find healing for herself and others.

Roy Baizan is a Mexican documentary photographer, arts educator, and organizer from the Bronx whose work focuses on community, environment, and identity.
Shortly after graduating from the International Center of Photography’s Teen Programming they became a teaching assistant. This would put them on a path to become an educator focusing on empowering the city’s youth through visual storytelling and community service. They have since worked for The Bronx Documentary Center, The Point, The Bronx River Art Center, and ICP continuing to pass forward the opportunities that were awarded to them and creating safe, supportive learning spaces for social change.
In 2018 they graduated from the Visual Journalism and Documentary Practice Program at ICP with the support of the Wall Street Journal Scholarship and Board of Directors Scholarship. Recently Photoville has featured them as an artist to watch in 2020. Their work has been published in The New York Times, America Magazine, The Intercept, Remezcla, and Rolling Stone among many others.
In 2021, they were awarded the Enfoco Fellowship as well as The Magnum Foundation Photography and Social Justice Fellowship.

Itzel Basualdo is an interdisciplinary artist originally from Miami, Florida, now based in Brooklyn, NY. Their practice spans drawing, video, sound, photography, and text to create interactive environments that challenge and disrupt dominant hierarchies of gender, race, class, and ability. Engaging with cultural, historical, and political frameworks, their work navigates the intersections of self, other, and place, questioning the systems that define them. As a Mexican-Argentinian-American, their work is rooted in bilingual poetics, serving as both a medium and a point of departure for the ideas they explore. In their words, “there is prayer, there is war, and there is dance—and sometimes, it’s reggaeton.”

Luis Manuel Diaz is a Mexican-born visual artist working with photography. Drawing from personal and communal history, his practice examines the post migration sensorium, asking questions about the constructions of community, home, and self. In 2020, Diaz was awarded the EnFoco Photography fellowship and later in 2022 was awarded a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Photography. Recently he was part of the 30th-anniversary VICE photography issue. Diaz has exhibited work at Blue Sky Gallery, Aperture Foundation, Bronx Art Space, Arnold and Sheila Aronson Gallery, and Baxter st Camera Club. He’s been commissioned by The Nation, The New Yorker, The California Sunday, the Atlantic and published by BOOOOOOOOM, MATTE, i-D, Musée, and Foam Magazine among others. Diaz is currently based in New Haven, Connecticut, pursuing an MFA in Photography at the Yale School of Art.

Odette Chavez-Mayo is a Mexican American artist creating images that explore the ephemerality of existence through themes of memory, identity, and the in-between. She holds a BFA from Antioch College and was awarded the EnFoco Photography Fellowship. She has exhibited work at Bronx Art Space, The Herndon Gallery, RoyGBiv Gallery and Dayton Visual Arts Center. Currently, Odette is based in New Haven, CT and is an artist-in-residence at the Ely Center for Contemporary art.

Jennifer Teresa Villanueva is a Mexican-American artist born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, and based in Brooklyn, NY. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a focus on Photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2020) and received her Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art at the University of Texas at Austin (2023). Villanueva’s work, characterized by vibrant color, intimate portraits, and still lifes, intricately explores her immigrant family’s experiences, addressing exploitative labor, generational trauma, and the pursuit of the American Dream. Notable awards include the Lower East Side Printshop Keyholder Award, En Foco 2024 Photography Fellowship, Aperture 2023 Creator Labs Photo Fund, Elaine G. Weitzen ISP Fellowship, and the Rauschenberg Artist Fund. Villanueva was a Whitney ISP Studio Program Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2023/24. Her practice examines sociological, historical, and political dimensions through photography, prints, research, and writing, shaping a narrative rooted in the complexities of labor and immigrant life.

ABOUT THE CURATOR:
Xavier Robles Armas is a multidisciplinary artist and curator with a focus on public space, photography, Mexican-American literature, and how migration shapes architecture in the U.S. He is currently the Events and Arts Manager at the Latinx Project, NYU, where he curated Tinkuy: Converging Ecologies (2023) and supported exhibitions like Re-collections (2024). A recent Leadership Institute Fellow at NALAC (2024), Xavier has also been part of the inaugural cohort of Latinx curators in the A&L Berg Foundation’s Early Stage Arts Professionals program. He has held fellowships at the Queens Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago, and worked with various institutions as a curator, educator, and programmer. Xavier is pursuing an MA in Performance Studies at NYU, holds an MFA in Photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a BA in Architectural Studies from Hampshire College. Born in Zacatecas, Mexico, Xavier lives in Queens, New York—by way of Santa Ana, California.

WALLWORKS NEW YORK is a contemporary art gallery in the South Bronx, dedicated to bringing art back uptown. In the vein of Fashion MODA, WALLWORKS is dedicated to showcasing new and exciting art from both emerging and established artists, mixing “downtown” sensibility with “uptown” style; a place for exploration. The passion project of legendary Graffiti pioneer CRASH and entrepreneur Robert Kantor, WALLWORKS seeks to remind people of the rich culture of the Bronx, and encourage everyone to take a trip Uptown!

Bronx Kreate Hub is a workspace and community incubator in Mott Haven that supports the growth and continued success of local artists, creatives, and entrepreneurs. Community members represent a diverse array of specialties, including animators, graffiti artists, photographers, designers, and community organizations like En Foco and the Mott Haven Film Festival among others. Studio spaces are available at an array of affordable price points, reaffirming Kreate Hub’s commitment to building community through access.