CCA News
Basking in Achievement in Oaxifornia
Posted on Thursday, October 1, 2009, by Clay Walsh
The fifth annual CCA summer study-abroad course in Oaxaca, Mexico—known as "Oaxifornia"—was again a success, bringing CCA students together with local artists in a truly interdisciplinary setting. In a countryside town about 12 miles outside Oaxaca City, 13 CCA students lived and worked for three weeks this past July in the Ex-Hacienda de Guadalupe. CCA Design faculty member Raul Cabra and his partner purchased and fully restored the home about two years ago; it is surrounded by milpas (corn farmland) and is a vast ejido (communal land) used for multiple purposes by the townspeople.
Cabra started this program never realizing it would become the intensive life project that it has. The goal, as it has evolved, is to investigate and define new methodologies for the use of design, art, and creativity as tools for social change and cultural engagement. The studio also explores the opportunities and implications of collaborative work with local artisans in a tradition-rich cultural context.
This year's CCA student contingent came from a wide array of programs, undergraduate and graduate, in fine art, design, writing, and visual criticism. Also participating were three local Mexican craft students in their 20s. This year's focus was on the use of carrizo (a cane used in baskets and other structures); making alebrijes (traditional wooden animal carvings); and using waist- and pedal-type looms. (In past years the emphasis has been on ceramics, wood, wax, silver, hammocks, and weaving.)
The American students became immersed in the local culture immediately upon arrival. They took trips to important nearby sites guided by local historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, architects, and even culinary experts (Oaxaca is world famous for its food).
At one point during the first week, each member of the group took just two minutes to describe his or her background and work, and then the students were assigned to partnerships that would last for the remainder of the course. For two days they went home with their artisan mentors to observe how their family groups worked together, see artworks evolve from start to finish, and document the process.
The second week of the course brought everybody back to the hacienda to participate in a three-day-long "form" workshop, centered on the idea of play as a means of innovation. Prototypes for potential new objects were coaxed out and critiqued by the group. Daily discussions addressed ethical issues of cultural appropriation and translation, the use of contemporary art and design to revitalize dying artisanal traditions, and the creation of mutually beneficial models for creative collaboration. Assigned readings addressed a broad range of topics, such as the meaning of patrimony, or heritage, and the role of the field researcher as a participant-observer.
Recent CCA grad Emily Jan (Painting/Drawing 2009) served as Cabra's teaching assistant; she had been a student participant in 2008. She and the other instructors were bilingual, and helped translate between non-Spanish speaking CCA students and non-English speaking artisans. Jan notes however that even in the student-artisan pairings with little common language, communication was still able to continue in the absence of translators: "Nowhere else have I seen students engaged so deeply and cultural barriers deconstructed so quickly. The communion of making can truly transcend cultural barriers, and even language itself."
In the third and most intensive week, the work went from the presentation of potential design directions to the actual production of pieces for the final show, which opened at the end of the week at one of the most prestigious modern galleries in town, Casa de la Ciudad. This is the culmination of the course and always a shining and emotional night. It attracts a large crowd, including press, prominent artists, businesspeople, designers, restaurateurs, and of course community members. The 2009 presentation received coverage in more than 20 newspapers, appeared in three television segments, and was the subject of a public television special in Oaxaca. The New York Times has slated a future story on Oaxifornia.
Most of the CCA student participants over the years report that they have never before worked in such an interdisciplinary setting, or been so totally immersed in a foreign culture. Also frequently overwhelming is the praise that always accompanies the course's final gallery show. In the art world, Oaxaca is perhaps best known as the hometown of the painters Rufino Tamayo and Francisco Toledo, who have been deeply influential at all levels of the city's cultural life. Toledo is responsible for the creation of numerous libraries, museums, and other public cultural institutions, and is regarded as having almost single-handedly revived the heart of old-town Oaxaca. But until recently, native Oaxacan artwork has never received adequate attention in the larger art world. Many of the Oaxacan artisans had only ever shown and sold their work in their local markets. This is their first step up, Cabra observes, to selling in high-end design and craft stores, and it is but a short step from there to upscale shops and even museums in Mexico City. Quite often, new commissions for the artisans come as a direct result of the Oaxifornia show.
Cabra (for whom Oaxaca is now a second home) is careful to note that Oaxifornia is not simply about offering CCA students an opportunity to go to a new country and work with artisans or others in disadvantaged positions. Other programs do that already. In this course, he says, "We actually create an experience that allows a very high degree of intimacy and understanding to develop, in which all participants are learning together, and control and power are shared and exchanged among artisans, students, and teachers."
He explains that this kind of dynamic is perhaps only possible in an academic environment, and he appreciates this opportunity to create a new kind of classroom. "The students are not in a hotel. They step into our lives, the two worlds mix, and they walk right along with us in our crazy adventure. Having a safe space to call home makes them brave and allows them to be strong in a new world that is full of unpredictability and challenges but also profoundly beautiful."
Cabra hears from many artists, artisan guilds, professors at other American colleges, and even Oaxacan government officials that CCA's contributions through this course have had a positive, long-term effect on the way craft is regarded, approached, produced, consumed, and hopefully preserved in Oaxaca.
To celebrate the course's fifth anniversary, a "best-of" show will take place this December at the most prominent high-end retail space in Oaxaca City, Tienda Q. It will be curated by Danish artist Trine Ellitsgaard.
About Raul Cabra
Raul Cabra has been teaching about design and social issues at CCA for the past 10 years. He is also principal of Cabra Diseno, a San Francisco design firm with an emphasis on multidisciplinary, community-based, socially engaged work in the fields of health, art, and education.
Cabra lectures frequently to national and international audiences, most recently addressing the IV Congress of AIDS and HIV Prevention in Cuiaba, Brazil, and the University of Nuevo Leon Design Conference in Monterrey, Mexico. He has served as a consultant to the Republic of China on social change through education and sustainability and is a frequent collaborator with local and international artists.
About Studying Abroad at CCA
CCA's summer study-abroad programs send students to numerous countries around the world to explore fine art, design, and architecture. See Summer Study Abroad for more information.