Free Citizenship | Ciudadania Libre

The Arts at CIIS and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Colonia Libertad invite you to become a FREE CITIZEN

* Friday, June 23rd, 6:00-8:00PM *
Desai | Matta Gallery at CIIS
1453 Mission Street, SF, CA 94103

Kick off PRIDE Weekend with artists OMAR PIMIENTA and LUIS HERNANDEZ and an evening of food, performance, and citizenship at the Desai | Matta Gallery at CIIS.

Bring your passport, (it can be expired!) and apply for CiudadaniaLIBRE (Free Citizenship). Your passport will become part of the artist's archive, a portion of which is on view in the current exhibition, "Desde el otro lado." In exchange you'll receive a new passport indicating your free citizenship!

Or talk with artist Luis Hernandez about borders, boundaries, and walls. Luis' "el otro lado" is the centerpiece of "Desde el otro lado", poetically pointing to walls' dual nature to both keep in and keep out. On June 23rd Hernandez will extend the wall to performatively engage viewers in an exploration of the impact that the wall between Mexico and the U.S. has on neighbors.

The geographic boundary between the United States and Mexico looms large in our political discourse and collective imagination. It's an international border that is a highly charged fulcrum of economic inequality, representing both possibility and danger. The eight artists in "Desde el otro lado | Land and People Divided" explore the intersecting and sometimes contradictory realities that define the border region. With the impulse to build walls keeping pace with growing international inequality, these artists deconstruct the fortress impulse and suggest the doorways, real and imagined, that connect habitat and humans.

Free