The origins of “En Donde Era La ONU” (EDELO) or “Where the United Nations Used to Be” began in 2009 when over 100 Indigenous community members occupied a United Nations (U.N.) office building in San Cristóbal de las Casa, Chiapas, Mexico. Artists Mia Eve Rollow and Caleb Duarte worked with the local community to transform the abandoned U.N. building into an intercultural artist residency named EDELO, drawing inspiration from the Indigenous Zapatista uprising of 1994.
For over 16 years, Rollow and Duarte have collaborated with Indigenous and marginalized communities to create artworks addressing survival and resistance to lacking institutional responses through EDELO. The exhibit at the Institute of Arts and Sciences (IAS) is the first time that EDELO pieces have been showcased in an art institution.
The exhibit will be open to the public from Jan. 31 to April 20, and a celebration of the opening will be held at the IAS for a First Friday event on Feb. 7.
“We both believe in [the IAS’s] abolitionist perspective, it’s an honor,” Rollow said. “[I think] artists should be able to present our work in this context of visualizing [the] world without these institutions caging us. ”
“The caging of brown people and mass deportation seems to be more socially acceptable [now]… so part of this work is in response to the violence of the history of the United States,” Duarte said. “I think our communities have always felt it and knew it, lived it — existing through underground economies, surviving without papers, without documentation, without acknowledgement [from] institutions. It’s kind of like how we’ve managed to survive and sustain our families.”
From their years of working with multiple marginalized Indigenous communities, Duarte and Rollow connect over shared struggles, envisioning a future of solidarity through art in times of severe political turmoil.
“When the built environment is made for you to not survive, you have to create ways where you can survive,” Rollow said. “There’s a spiritual strength we all need to hold onto … That’s the main tool that we have to survive. We can suffer immense torture but you can never break someone’s soul.”
In collaboration with the Black Panther Party, Duarte and Rollow created a selection of murals titled “Zapantera Negra.” At the center of the mural is a boy painted orange, a color representing human rights. The boy also symbolizes Central American refugees who take the 3,000 mile journey to the United States while enduring persistent threats of kidnapping, extortion and assault.
Benches in the exhibit, titled “Assembly,” are utilized for performance, guest seating and visual art. Recurring motifs, like a line of painted protestors, are representative of “La 72”, a project dedicated to the protection and aid of migrants crossing through Mexico’s southern border at Tenosique, Tabasco.
“University of the Dirt” was created in collaboration with Barrios Unidos, an organization committed to curating community spaces to end mass incarceration. Although the sculpture is up to interpretation, the concept of the piece is escaping reality by crawling though the root, a portal that ideas and people can travel through.
