Marjorie Barrick Museum of ArtPartner Story

In 2022, the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art and the Womxn of Color Arts Festival co-presented Still Motion, an exhibition featuring works by women artists of color that explore issues of spirituality, place, and immigration, as well as humanity’s relationship with the earth and environment.

The exhibition included two of Ana Mendieta’s films on loan from Art Bridges: Fundamento de Palo Monte: Silueta Series (Gunpowder Works) (1980) and Esculturas Rupestres (Rupestrian Sculptures) (1981). The Barrick Museum used these films as a catalyst for two programs that engage the artist’s themes of spiritual connection and self-care.

For the first program, the Barrick Museum hosted a hands-on workshop inspired by Mendieta’s practices of self-care and self-exploration in partnership with Aluminati – a diverse, experimental, student-driven foundry project by Emily Budd.

The event began at the museum with a viewing of Mendieta’s films followed by an open discussion. For many participants, this marked their first exposure to the artist’s work. Participants then traveled to the UNLV Department of Art’s foundry and metal shop for the workshop led by the Aluminati team.

As part of this collective artmaking process, participants replicated Mendieta’s engagement with the earth by mark-making in a large-scale community sand mold, after which they cast a recycled aluminum sculpture to preserve a permanent record of these markings and memorialize the community built throughout the workshop. The sculpture was later displayed alongside Mendieta’s work in Still Motion and included in the Barrick Museum’s permanent collection.

In addition to a metal-casting project, the workshop involved holistic healing practices and self-care exercises to explore emotions and process the artist’s ideas. Participants made their own cast tin Silueta and were provided prompts and biographical information on Mendieta in the form of an activity zine, developed by the Aluminati team to deepen engagement during the workshop.

The reflective nature of this programming was brought about by the Barrick Museum’s desire to engage in trauma-informed discussions revolving around identity, place, and healing, which builds on the work of the UNLV Care Center.

To learn more about the Barrick Museum’s workshop with Aluminati, check out this highlights video from the event.

In developing the second program, the Barrick Museum set out to support the presentation of fine art in Las Vegas, increase audience attendance, and provide the local performing arts community with a space to perform again following the closure of many venues due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The museum commissioned five local artists of color to create an evening of works inspired by Mendieta’s films. Through their performances, the artists – Adriana Chavez, Yasmina Chavez, Clarice Tara Cuda, Amanda Guardado, and Javier Sanchez – explored relevant themes, including migration, loss, self-discovery, and the physicality of belonging. The experience enabled some of these artists to fully realize performances they were previously unable to perform due to a lack of opportunity during the pandemic.

By involving several artists, the museum was able to juxtapose multiple interpretations of Mendieta’s complex and multifaceted work. The artists’ responses to her focus on the natural elements also called for the use of unexpected props, such as soil and water, that the museum had not featured on this scale before.

In the end, the Barrick Museum achieved its goals, increasing attendance by over 30% and fielding several requests for future events.

The Barrick Museum’s interdisciplinary programs “enabled our collaborators to be generous with their imaginations, freely incorporating the elemental forces that Mendieta invokes,” according to one staff member. We love that the museum bridged the gap between art and wellness, attracted new audiences and first-time visitors, formed new partnerships, and created opportunities for ongoing collaborations with community partners.