Since emigrating from Cuba at age 11, when her family moved to America and crammed into a two-bedroom apartment, artist Maria Elena Gonzalez has been interested in the idea of how place and space reflect and influence people.
A newly acquired $2,000 Memphis Arts Council grant will help bring her exhibit, “UNreal estates, Flying carpet/American Dream,” to the Art Museum of the University of Memphis (AMUM).
In conjunction with Gonzalez’s work, Patricia Carreras, U of M adjunct professor in creative movement, will hold a workshop with a group of 15 to 16 children from Colonial Middle School. They will explore students’ experiences in coming to America and their ideas of home.
Gonzalez’s central image is what she calls a “flying carpet” with a typical two-bedroom apartment floor plan embossed on it, according to Leslie Luebbers, director of AMUM.
“It represents where the typical immigrant ends up,” Luebbers said.
“No matter how many people, it is always a two bedroom apartment. But it is their magic carpet to whatever they can achieve in their new home.”
Gonzalez said her work also questions what is remembered about childhood homes, the culture, and how memory is altered over time.
Gonzalez said she returned to her childhood home in Cuba after 32 years of absence, and found her memory of the house to be very different from reality.
“We never remember things just the way they were,” Gonzalez said. “The proportions I recalled were wrong.”
Carreras, who comes from a performance art background, said she will work with a visual artist to first talk to the children about their ideas of home, and then have them bring in something that symbolizes their home. The objects will be used to make a visual house, what Carreras called a “house of rooms.”
The students will stand in their room with their special object, according to Carreras.
“Not only will the project allow the students a close up look at an internationally renowned artist, but allow them to become a part of finding their idea of home — to have them be a part of it,” Carreras said.
According to Luebbers, Carreras made a conscious decision not to choose a group of all one culture — like an English as a Second Language class — because they wanted more of a mix of ethnic backgrounds.
“We’re hoping for some interesting dialogue between children,” Luebbers said.
“Memphis has changed a lot in the last 20 years due to an increase of Asian and Hispanic immigrants.”
The $2,000 Memphis Arts Council grant brings the total funding for the project to nearly $90,000, according to Luebbers. Other contributors were the National Endowment for the Arts ($20,000), the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts ($40,000), and the First Tennessee Bravo Association ($8,000).
Gonzalez’s work will travel to the Art in General Gallery of New York and Diverse Works of Houston, Texas, and will come to The U of M March 8 through April 19.
