The Puente Project
“Bridging communities across fronteras to connect with ourselves and each other more deeply”
Vision Tolteca is proud to propose The Puente Program, a fusion of educational and artistic growth focused on providing opportunities to local artists. We believe this program can build a foundation for local artists in the IE, and for the IE to fortify its own identity while connecting with the world beyond.
In this proposal we will explore how we plan to create a flexible structure that will host educational workshops for the community and invite local artists to participate in a final exhibit on a topic that is directly relevant to the culture, community, and region where the program is hosted. All applicable artists will be given a chance to apply but will be handpicked by the program managers and must have attended at least one workshop to be eligible to apply for the community gallery exhibit. The workshops will be open to the community as a whole, and curriculum created on the topic chosen will be An invite to the opening reception will be extended to all applying artists and other key members of the community.
The opportunity for growth is vast - although the intention is to make the educational and artistic workshops available at no cost to the public, opportunities for financial ventures are taken into consideration and will be explored further in this text. Finally, given the program structure’s ability to take on a variety of topics, we anticipate the opportunity to expand beyond the IE without losing any of the integrity that gives local communities the freedom to explore their own voice and history.
Pilot: Black & Brown in the IE & Beyond
For the year 2025, we propose to launch our pilot program with the Black & Brown in the IE & Beyond exhibit (BBIE for short), an exploration of interracial relations highlighting the overlapping struggles, experiences, and expressions between Black and Latinx communities within the IE and beyond. This exhibit will not only explore local national history but also include an international element with a collaboration to bring Afro Oaxacan cultural displays that further illustrate how illusory the divide between Black & Brown cultures can be.
The topics will not be limited to any culture, identity, or even region. They will however, explore history by inviting experts and artists with knowledge and experience that will expand the local region’s understanding of a topic. Although many topics will invite experts and artists from outside regions, they will be collaborating with a local that will tie relevant commonalities to the local stories. In this way, the local region gets to expand its influence to other communities while seeing how it correlates to their own history and experience.
