"Art can impact the social context of family dislocations and can serve as a powerful tool in encouraging an open national dialogue about Zero Tolerance in our country"
So (sew) America Cares is a participatory social art project with a commitment to raise awareness about the lives of the children separated from their parents at the border. All the faces stitched together strengthen the very fabric of our own society.
In 2018 a Zero Tolerance immigration policy was announced, requiring that all families who cross the border shall not only be separated but also charged in federal court with the misdemeanor crime of illegal entry.
This Project’s mission is to advocate for these children and to extend an invitation to anyone who would like to participate. Thread by thread, fiber by fiber, a participating community will increase its understanding of the circumstances of these children who never asked to be illegal aliens. The project consists of 10 different faces that will be repeated 100 times each to add 1000 faces. The faces had been laser etched on raw canvas to allow the participant to use any kind of thread, yarn, wool, fabric, paint etc. So (sew) America Cares has a plan: to "sew" them back, to never allow these children to be lost again, to create a quilt of 1000 faces representing a portion of these children.
We cannot allow these traumatized children to disappear and in time, be forgotten.People are encouraged to stitch, sew, knit, knot, crochet, embroider, or braid these drawings so as to symbolically recover these children’s faces and lives again.
So (sew) America Cares is an international call for people to participate and raise awareness as to the consequences of this immigration policy and its devastating effect on children. As citizen, artist, mother and a child that suffered being separated from my family for eight years, I am concerned about the hundreds of separated children across our country.
WORK
"The embroidery machine facilitates a delicate and yet frenetic pace. Every time I sew, I connect the tension of my foot on the pedal to the movement of my hands as I guide the fabric’s surface into what I want to draw."
Aurora Molina
These anthropoidals coexist in a habitat devoid of any established human law and where the relationship between their different personalities makes them react intuitively. In this habitat there is symbolic representation of differently created stereotypes, representing social values present in human groupings. These are creatures that are funny, frightening, incongruous-looking, part human, part animal, and intentionally grotesque. The anthropomorphic aspect of the pieces is the animal that wants to become human. My use of stocking make them appear crude, more visceral, as if the skin had been removed to reveal what’s beneath, to expose the rawness of tissue and blood. Indeed, it is the grotesque nature of these pieces that is meant to invite deeper explorations into the true nature of the character, a repulsiveness that seduce the spectator to reexamine his or her own psychological vulnerabilities.
I dealt with the everyday lives of the elderly in our postmodern society through a series of works ranging from photographs, videos , sculptures, street art and installation to curatotial work. In today’s culture the elderly are carefully hidden from society's gaze. Implicit Ageism explores the multiple issues related to society's dismissive attitude towards the elderly, reaffirming in the process the need to respect our elders. I examine this growing need to connect by focusing on individual narratives. Whereas society has slowly created “fictions” and “virtual realities” to replace the real, I instead direct the spectator’s attention to the everyday real happenings of ordinary lives.
This series explores the multiple issues related to society's dismissive attitude towards the elderly, reaffirming in the process the need to respect our elders. In this case specifically i documented elders on the streets of Fez, Morroco. In today’s culture the elderly are carefully hidden from society's gaze.
Pioneros is a kinetic piece. These 6 sculptures have robotics mechanisms that at the command of a voice "Pioneros por el comunismo" they react by putting their hands up to their forehead as a sing of salute and they respond " Seremos como el Che". Children in communist cuba grow up being "pioneros" and swear every morning they will grow up to be like Che Guevara. This piece resembles the sequel of learning, memorizing and often growing up believing in someone the regime idolizes. It is the consequence of brain washing kids and how that can create a wake in adults.
Aurora Molina examines the egocentricity that informs the phenomena of the "selfie" and the celebrity's desperate need for attention. She draws attention to the addictive nature of the selfie, the publicity fix, and creates a series of sculptures that project pop culture’s drug-like dependency on social acceptance. The selfie becomes a self-perpetuating social disease that feeds off of its own self indulgence and complacency, leaving little or no room for self-examination.
We live in a society that elevates the spectacle and encourages the intense glorification of the spectacle of the self- my life in your face - "el yo-ismo" - where sober self-examination gives way to aggressive self-indulgence, obsessive and pathological in nature. This is a culture in which celebrities set the bar and identities are fabricated accordingly.
"Everydayness" series reveals anthropomorphic creatures in a fictional urban setting in a society that sees itself as utopian in nature. In a compilation of photographs documenting everyday life and routines, teens taking selfies, elders contemplating protests, metro stations, etc., the construction of a cityscape emerges. Another dimension to the urban reality is the digital platform. For this series of thread drawings on fabric, Molina explores the contradiction and confluence of space and action in any society.The modernist model demands a new space within the social space itself. The intention of using thread to create this series speaks to a a woman's tradition and role in a culture dominated by hegemonic masculinity. The softness and delicacy of the medium dignifies a woman's opinion and presence in the social space.
Auguries are keen samples of some of the prominence symbolism of the birds, the crow foretells the arrival of a guest or surrounds you as you embrace darkness. Birds are omens of luck in pagan religion and in alchemy they are mystical and are symbolic of magical endeavors. Humans have given a vast symbolism to birds from fleeting to transitory and this has remain in the human psyche and that’s maybe the main difference between birds and humans, because we are not ruled by our unconscious mind.
Natural disasters have always been part of the artist’s repertoire from neo-romanticism to the dialect of nature and modernity, to the point of great obsession with modernity and postmodern life where climate change in an orderly chaos is a word without dirt or a perfect world, at least that is what 96% of Floridians think when it comes to water sea level rise and the exponential development of areas that enjoy the front row in the water line, where mangrove use to protect us from the sea, creating a barricade, now the wall is pure concrete and is high in the horizon. Miami is (Th) Sinking deals the cards of the current situation and through the use of the silky beautiful thread attempts to make the audience understand that the sea that once was quite and calm is starting to gain its territory. The scenes are from with the area the is map in the backdrop, from downtown miami the epicenter of developing agencies to the inner city that is being pushed and gentrified. Miami beach is in the midst of fleeing all the birds and different species.
This series attempts to pay attention to the most vulnerable in this community and though their stories challenged the social status quo to pay attention to the children and their stories, wether fictional or based on their life these puppets are going to express an aspect of humanity’s infancy, a sort of archetype.
SO (Sew) America Cares raises awareness as to the consequences of this Draconian policy. Its mission is to advocate for these children and to extend an invitation to anyone who would like to participate. As a South Florida artist, I am concerned about the hundreds of separated children ending up in shelters across our country.
The intent of presenting this work is to encourage dialogue around migration, displacement, and internment, all pressing matters in our current political climate.
Molina return to her old memories as well as her new memories gives her personal histories with artisans who were quilters, seamstresses, menders, knitters, and embroiderers: in her effort to reacquaint the viewer with these storytellers. She makes us remember that art is more than oil painting on canvas, or the sculpture you back into when looking at those oil paintings.
Concern with the objectivity of woman. Their Vogue like imagery, contrasted with the perception that beauty had in the past, trying to present women as icons rather than standardized beauty trends. Her current work explores the passing of time and aging, a transition between youth and the elderly, concerned with social issues and how society perceives common individuals complementary with the great deal of importance celebrities play in our common life.
Since one of my purposes is to make people conscious through my work about the old tradition of textile and women's history i decided i was going to contact one of the few ladies that still was embroidery. The kids started to add color to their RETRATABLOS, retratos + retablos.
Later the goal was to rescue as many kind of hand embroider stitching as it was possible and had local artisian embroiders reinterpret the kids work into textile.
These face shields are used in theatrics, religious ceremonies and in everyday life. The exploration of gestures and story telling in Javanese performance led to the use of Indonesian mask mime. An aspect of our exploration included that of the sacred and the profane through the use of anthropomorphic disguisement. These camouflages may mediate with the spirit world and protect the human instinctive self. In a more contemporary context masks have become a functional tool instead of an aesthetic garment. The exploration of the history of masks in a more practical purpose shows that these face shields keeps being a tool of protection whether it is for disease prevention, religious protection, or refinement and caricature.
This exhibit is derived from a simple willingness to imagine a world less dreary. It is a world full of stories and superstitions, a world where fantastical creatures morph into symbols of different cultural beliefs. For instance, Nahuals are ordinary people that turn into animals under a full moon. In my fantastical world, I provide them with the opportunity to choose what they want to become rather than what their society expects them to be. A simple businessman can discover a creative way for reinvention by becoming a new life form that eschews the ennui of the everyday revealing instead a celebration of our human/animal instincts.
Vignettes of inmmigrant families and misfortune situation that can happen given their legal status in the US.
“Bonfire of the Vanities” references the Florentine bonfire of February 7, 1497. Followers of Dominican priest Girolamo Savonarola burned allegedly vain and sinful objects by the thousands. Subject to destruction were books, fine dresses, cosmetics, mirrors, paintings, sculpture, and secular music.
This Series questions the nature of vanity and frivolity, their source, and ultimate influence on society.
Molina’s work addresses the negative and strangely positive impact vanity has on culture.
“The modern cult of appearance and superficiality actually serves the common good. Tocqueville feared that mass culture would create passive citizens incapable of political reasoning, Lipovetsky argues that today's mass-produced fashion offers many choices, which in turn enable consumers to become complex individuals within a consolidated, democratically educated society. Superficiality fosters tolerance among different groups within a society, claims Lipovetsky. To analyze fashion's role in smoothing over social conflict, he abandons class analysis in favor of an inquiry into the symbolism of everyday life and the creation of ephemeral desire”, says Aurora Molina.
Inspired by the woman-child theme in Mary Cassat's work, this series draws attention to the relationship between a young child and her great-grandmother, each representing the early and end stages of life. The child is aware of the fragility of her great-grandmother just as the old woman seems acutely aware of what this young child represents - a reminder of her life lived deeply and long. The obvious tenderness between the two, the acts of nurturing and gentle play are but the universal gestures of an old woman and a little girl at her knees.
As observers, however, we understand the inevitable cynicism that also defines these moments, moments that we know occur too rarely in a hard-driving busy life.
The usb connector that connects these creatures to an alternate & magical world of the surreal that becomes not a virtual reality but a new reality so immersed in madness that no one notices. After all why would anyone want to be the only sane one in a world of madness and folly?! As tourists we co-opt a scene, a landscape perhaps, and make it our own by taking a picture of it and exporting it to a world of virtual realities, visited by friends & family. The real scene is lost and discounted and the new "real" landscape is the one saved in the electronic memory of the cell. We are trapped in this new reality that we create. But its only real if we perceive it to be real.
Like Goya’s Los Caprichos, Molina comments on American politics and we recognize ourselves, friends, and politicians in these satirical scenes made with embroidery. Molina greets her audience at the entrance of the gallery with the candidates who ran in 2017, and the two candidates (neither of which has agreed to run) that she would like to see hold high office in American politics.
The mother & the children-terrified.This new series intends to awaken the fragility of the human experienced. The representation of memory and the luggage we all carried is imply in the sad gestures of the face, the lack of vibrancy in the color palette and the repetition of the color red in the bags, almost as i heart palpitating the bags are full of those experiences or dreams.
Molina’s new series undoubtedly uses the motif of Arachne as a representation
of the women’s suffrage movement. A connection that is also rooted on native
cultures who used weaving such as the Navajo, their dream catcher and a mix of
New England folk rag rug weaving. Just like the rug hooking of the 1900s that
used whatever materials were available, these pieces are assembled from
repurposed t-shirt yarn. The yarn is recycled from the garment industry, a by-
product of the industrialization of textiles.
Capturing their reality, not criticizing either ignoring their circunstances was that I began this series of sculptures in Puebla, Mexico, as part of an artist residency. I was interested to document the locals and reinterpret their presence in the cotidian enviroment on the boulevards, streets, churches, etc..I had been photographing and documenting how they belong to the city, becoming attached to the corners and benches, some were beggers other were selling newspaper, but each one was ignore as is that passer that we only noticed when is not there. Using autochthonous hand embroidery techniques to highlight their faces and recreating their attire, I installed these whole series of Sculpture in train wagons, as if they were scavenged from the city wanting to be missed.
These Photographs, in many ways, are a critique of this postmodern iconography as it attempts to highlight not only the natural process of aging but society’s concomitant refusal to recognize it as such. The obsession with youth and physical beauty often results in an infantilization of society which steeped in narcissism, becomes a society of spectacle. My pieces attempt to draw attention to the ways in which this self-absorption is encouraged by an unfettered individualism which unchallenged serves only to fracture family ties, friendships and the larger social consciousness, creating and awkward integration when the individual does not conform to the established standards.
Incoherent Stories is a series of drawings on cotton paper using different mediums and experimenting the quality of free motion drawing and textures on papers.
Wherein I present a body of work as a critique of those portraits of alienation. They are immigrants, workers, painters, neighbors, and people on the streets. Their commonality transcends economic status and ethnic background. They are equally represented. It is not a piece about individuals but rather a conglomerate of individuals with 65 head portraits and 10 full portraits put together as an installation.
neque mittatis margaritas vestras ante porcos
St. Matthew assured us that swine will trample pearls and turn to tear you into pieces as well.
Thus the irony of the artist’s struggle with a public unable to understand the wisdom of pearls.
Fisherman casting their lines near a beach, finding swine in the shallows.
Magical Gardens Tapestry Series
Magical Gardens is a project developed in Teotitlan Del Valles in Oaxaca, Mexico in collaboration with a group of artisans. Teotitlan is a town on the outskirts of Oaxaca and is known for its woven tapestry work. This tapestry series initiates an aesthetic dialogue wherein different materials and techniques are used for different characteristics of magical imagery and the symbols of an inviolate eden, the magical garden of an early 17th century Florida: a rabbit rooted and growing from a tree trunk in conversation with a smooth-talking trickster pulling something out of his hat, preparing to appropriate this garden from the native people for himself. The garden is a magical garden that tells the story of the once mythical Florida of flowering paw paw and pink bindweed, the garden as metaphor for the once natural abundance of this peninsula, the rabbit smiling at the trickster, naive and unaware of his intentions.
This series of work incorporates the strategy of theater, a performance piece that mimics the surreal absurdity of automatonic politicians in a media-driven society.
Is a series that intend to represent different archetypes of taller tellers through the animal symbolism which are makes reference to the animal human behavior in our culture.
Symbols are the basis of culture. Many cultures believe that the evil eye is a magic curse, also in our contemporary culture of visual consumption of over stimulus through the eye, the eyes become the tool of democratization of what we select to see.
Kids separated from their families and screaming to see them. Children have lived traumatic experiences due to government policies from either their country or the country that they are abducted to. From Peter Pan, war conflicts, to the Syrian border and now at home with the kids from Centro America being separated from their parents this issue is not even about the political interests but about the child's experienced and the psychological stress these kids go through.
The Persistent Caravan is a collaborative, immersive,multi-disciplinary installation by artists Aurora Molina and Edison Peñafiel.
This collaboration focuses on socio-political issues relevant to both artists’ personal and collective experiences as migrants, including the physical and emotional struggles migrants live through their often-perilous journeys. The intent of presenting this work is to encourage dialogue around migration, displacement, and internment, all pressing matters in our current political climate.
Her February exhibition at The CAMP Gallery, The Texture of Grief, sees the artist moving away from her characteristic figurative style and embracing the abstraction of emotion and time. Collectively, the works are grounded in tension, be it visual or spiritual, embodied by the act of weaving.
As Molina would put it: “‘Don’t think’, ‘distract yourself’, ‘think of something else’—these are feelings and emotions that allow us to converge from a superficial dimension to a deeper emotional process, allowed by the constant rhythm of weaving two distinct sets of yarns (positive thought and negative thought) interlaced. The weft made of positive and negative thoughts [create] a woven surface where the tension of the weaving becomes its own language, and you have to learn how to decipher in relationship to your own experience.”
