Photography Without Borders

June 14 - July 20, 2013

*Opening Reception: Friday June 14, 5:30 - 8PM

Closing Reception: Saturday, July 20, 2-5PM

Taller Puertorriqueño is pleased to present photographer/educator Tony Rocco and his students from North Philadelphia, PA, and La Florida, Colombia, to conclude their three-year-long cultural exchange program in photography, education, and youth leadership in a multimedia exhibition in the Lorenzo Homar Gallery. 

This unique exhibition publicly acknowledges the powerful perspective of youths from inner-city America and rural Colombia who face the daily challenges of living in marginalized communities.  Rocco’s photographs bridge these two communities and respond in tandem with the students' work as they utilize photography as a medium to explore and compare their worlds.

*A group of students and chaperones from La Florida, Colombia will attend the opening reception on June 14th. The cross-cultural exhibition then travels to Colombia as the Philadelphia delegation embarks on a 10-day tour this summer of Medellín, Cali, and Bogotá, sponsored by the US Embassy and concludes with another group exhibition in Bogota in August, 2013.

Photography Without Borders is a photography outreach program that builds bridges between youth in marginalized communities around the world. For more info. please go to www.photography-without-borders.com. 

Esperanza Cortés: In Entre Sombras - Site of Memories

Lorenzo Homar Gallery

February 8th to March 30th, 2013

Reception:

Friday, February 8th, 5:30 to 8:00 p.m

Esperanza Cortés’ installations and paintings in Entre Sombras - Site of Memories, are tokens of human frailty, fears, and injustices that as a woman, mother, Colombian and Latina shape the world she sees. The Lorenzo Homar Gallery was fully resurfaced and smoothed as an essential part of the installation. Working with glass beads, clay, pigments and household objects such as chairs, sewing machine tables, metal chains and a basket she transformed into a bassinet, Cortés seeks to connect with individuals on a primal level, jolting the viewer with the familiarity of these objects against the otherwise stark presentation. She sees the female form and femininity as a center that is encircled and encompassed by compassion, violence, life, death, place and belonging.

The works presented here touch on the consequences of violence on women through war and abuse, exploitation of resources, financial insecurity, birth and death, and racial profiling.

Cortés, born in Bogotá, Colombia, emigrated to New York City at the age of four. Her interest in art began as a child and was shaped by her experiences in the Catholic Church through its ceremonies, altars, architecture and stained glass windows. She was also drawn into the arts by her family, her father’s work with metal, her mother’s knitting, beadwork and crocheting, and her grandmother’s cooking and stories of her native Colombia. As an artist, she sees a duality between personal and community roles. Within the gallery walls, her work feeds on her personal visions and experiences. Out in the streets, her methodology changes. Her work reacts to the environment, and, as she describes, is “in dialogue with its surroundings.”

Cortés lives and works in New York and has exhibited widely throughout the United States in places such as the Neuberger Museum of Art, The Bronx Museum of Art, El Museo del Barrio, the Cleveland Art Museum, and the Mexic-Arte Museum in Texas.

Her website is here.