I wanted to share SkyART’s recent trip to CDMX as part of our exchange program with our two year grant from the MacArthur Foundation. 

Not only did Devon, our Program Manager  and I go to ZonaMaco and the Material Art Fair, we visited an Artist Residency called Arquetopia in Puebla along with the staff from BUAP, We visited Bliss, a pop up gallery/ beauty salon, that creates new opportunities for women in the contemporary arts. And we met the Director of ArtePro that does art with children born in prisons. 

It was such an amazing trip. And the people we met made the idea of what this exchange could be expand exponentially. Everyone wanted to partner with SkyART. In the current political climate, we felt the time is right for these kind of collaborations. That said, we are already looking at next year for a new grant to support these relationships. We could all learn so much.

When we bring our group down this summer, we will  now definitely take them to a print making workshop in Puebla with BUAP and Arquetopia. We will also meet with the Bliss gallerist, to talk about female representation (or lack there of) in the art world and feminist ideas in art. The cohort we have selected happens to be all female. 

All in all it was an amazing trip. Below are pictures and video of the workshop Devon and I conducted at Centro Cultural Anáhuac. The next day we charted a bus so that the CCA class could attend the Material Art Fair. This might surprise you, but this was the first time that the youth had been on a field trip!  They took notes, and pictures, we spoke with the gallerists and had interesting discussions about the art and the high price of tacos at the fair (lol). 

Sarah Ward, Executive Director