{"id":28244,"date":"2015-03-04T20:42:11","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T02:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=28244"},"modified":"2023-12-03T10:47:28","modified_gmt":"2023-12-03T16:47:28","slug":"culture-creators-ruby-chacon-and-natalia-deeb-sossa-at-mestizo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/culture-creators-ruby-chacon-and-natalia-deeb-sossa-at-mestizo\/","title":{"rendered":"Culture Creators: Ruby Chacon and Natalia Deeb-Sossa at Mestizo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blogculture\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Culture has a powerful ability to shape many aspects of personal identity including political, social and familial interactions. Gender also plays a powerful role in this equation. Much has been made about how cultures structure male and female roles, but what happens when this culture is transplanted to a new space and is forced to confront entirely new national ideologies?<\/p>\n

Questions such as these serve as a thematic framework for the Mestizo Institute of Culture and Art\u2019s (MICA) newest exhibition,\u00a0Creadoras de Cultura: Activismo y Espiritualidad<\/em>(Creators of Culture: Activism and Spirituality)<\/em>, a two-woman show featuring the art of Ruby Chac\u00f3n and Natalia Deeb-Sossa.<\/p>\n

Creators of Culture<\/em>\u00a0showcases Chac\u00f3n\u2019s\u00a0Multigenerational Mexika Danzante Women<\/em>, a painted series of individual portraits that frame the perimeter of the exhibition space. Natalia Deeb-Sosa\u2019s\u00a0Colors of Culture<\/em>, a collection of photographic works, captures intimate depictions of female subjects. In unison, the two artists uncover the ways in which immigrants in America maintain the cultural traditions of their home nation, while maintaining and affirming their civil rights.<\/p>\n

Renato Olmedo-Gonz\u00e1lez, gallery director and curator of the MICA, acknowledges the exhibition is the product of an intense collaboration. He cites Ruby Chac\u00f2n (featured artist and co-founder of the MICA) as a constant influence, testifying \u201cRuby\u2019s work and activism laid the ground for Latino\/a art and artists (and other underrepresented communities) to be included, acknowledged and represented in the conversations surrounding art and artists within our community and state. I strive for the exhibitions I curate at Mestizo Gallery to be a continuation of this work.\u201d Indeed, Ruby Chac\u00f3n has worked diligently to spread an awareness of cultural diversity in the state of Utah. Since co-creating the Mestizo Institute with Terry Hurst in 2003, Chac\u00f3n has helped nurture artistic expression as a platform for intercultural exchange, all the while keeping busy with her own artistic projects.<\/p>\n

Creators of Culture<\/em>\u00a0assesses how women communicate and modify cultural identity. Chac\u00f3n and Deeb-Sossa each select subjects on a wide demographic and generational spectrum, showcasing the enormous impact of women in shaping and transmitting culture. Chac\u00f3n\u2019s series depicts the bodily movement and emotional association associated with\u00a0Mexika Danzante<\/em>\u2014a type of dance prevalent in Chicano\/a and Mexican-American communities. Her approach to each subject is nuanced, guided equally by the bodily movement and beautiful costumes of\u00a0Mexika Danzante\u00a0<\/em>and by animated facial expressions. In the latter category, the psychological richness of these subjects render costumes ancillary to identity. This provokes a decidedly feminist message, that the physical emblems of culture\u00a0inform<\/em>\u00a0but do not strictly\u00a0define<\/em>\u00a0the individual. Chac\u00f3n emphasizes this point, as she describes the series and its depiction of\u00a0Mexika Danzante<\/em>\u00a0as, \u201cAn empowering political and spiritual tool against cultural oppression, [yet] its practice, in many Chicano\/a communities, has perpetuated some aspects of patriarchal society by objecting and negating women to leadership roles.\u201d In this way, the visualization of dance moves becomes an allegory for the act of traversing and opposing the patriarchal system itself, by \u201ccombat[ing] the many ways in which these oppressive systems are actors in practice of this dance form.\u201d The inherent movement and impeccable attention to detail contained within her photographic series highlights the nuances of such attentions. It becomes clear then, that the challenge of identifying as an immigrant is coupled further by the complicated gendered roles assigned to women.<\/p>\n

Natalia Deeb-Sossa works as associate professor of Chicana Studies at University of California, Davis. As a feminist scholar, she has written a book and numerous articles exploring the connection between women and the dissemination of culture. Her photographs serve as an extension of her academic focus, narrowing in on women as cultural producers and storytellers, who through their actions weave a collective social fabric from one generation to the next. Deeb-Sossa\u2019s photographs resemble Chac\u00f3n\u2019s paintings in the detailed attention to diverse female subjects, each distinct in dress, age and expression.<\/p>\n

Through the thoughtful attention to their subjects, the artworks contained within\u00a0Creators of Culture<\/em>\u00a0allow viewers to not only appreciate their inherent beauty but also to share in an important civil and intellectual dialogue. This need for multicultural awareness is pressing and essential, as Olmedo-Gonz\u00e1lez affirms: \u201cLatinos are a vital part of Utah\u2019s history. We have one of the fastest-growing Latino populations in the country, 22% of Salt Lake City alone is Latino, and not to forget the fact that Utah was part of Mexico when the pioneers arrived in 1847. Understanding the history and art of Latinos in Utah (and in the U.S.) through these exhibitions isn\u2019t only about awareness it is about acknowledging and honoring all of our histories.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Creators of Culture: Activism and Spirituality<\/em>, art by Ruby Chac\u00f3n and Natalia Deeb-Sossa is at\u00a0Mestizo Institute of Culture and Art<\/a>, \u00a0641 W. North Temple #700, Salt Lake City, through March 14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Culture has a powerful ability to shape many aspects of personal identity including political, social and familial interactions. Gender also plays a powerful role in this equation. Much has been made about how cultures structure male and female roles, but what happens when this culture is transplanted to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":28245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[4362,1385,4361,2229,349],"class_list":["post-28244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-mestizo","tag-mestizo-institute-of-culture-and-arts","tag-mica","tag-natalia-deeb-sossa","tag-ruby-chacon"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/blogculture.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-23 18:06:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28244"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72434,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28244\/revisions\/72434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}