YESCKA: A Visual Encounter of the Socio-Political & Artistic Languages Rising from the Streets of Oaxaca Mexico

In Conjunction with the Mission Arts & Performance Project,

the Red Poppy Art House & EDELO Present: 

YESCKA: A Visual Encounter of the Socio-Political & Artistic Languages Rising from the Streets of Oaxaca, Mexico

The Red Poppy Art House collaborates with EDELO (En Donde Era La ONU ‘Where the United Nations Used to Be’) for the inauguration of YESCKA: A Visual Encounter of the Socio-Political & Artistic Languages Rising from the Streets of Oaxaca Mexico. The Poppy will exhibit the works of street artist Yescka for an evening of critical engagement in societal matters.

Schedule:

1:00pm – 6:00pm: Family Art + Heartbeat Soundscapes

“Stopping Police Violence Altar” – Family Art MAPP invites parents and their children to participate in creating a mandala out of yarn and sticks called God’s Eye or Ojo de Dios. This meditative practice comes from indigenous people in Mexico that created them for the blessing of a space, for newborns, and to represent the four elements: earth, fire, air and water. The Ojo de Dios will be part of an altar offered as a blessing, gift, and a net of safety for the community and those lost to police violence. The altar will be part of the inauguration of the exhibition and mural by Yescka Guerrilla Art.

*Family Art is a free art program offered by the Red Poppy Art House every Saturday 1-4pm.

Collaborating artist Katy Fox adds her work, Heartbeat Soundscapes, to the altar by amplifying the heartbeats of children who attend the Poppy’s Family Art Program. To perceive the heart, to feel and hear it, to have your rhythm literally sync with another’s, is to perceive what Paolo Virno deems a relation between “the highest possible degree of communality and the highest possible degree of singularity.” We Are Movement’s Heartbeat Soundscapes amplify a live heartbeat(s) into public space. Adding this intimate living sound to the usual mix of sounds on the street gives people surprising, direct experiences of their own embodiment—by first listening outward to someone else’s beat.

6:00pm – 7:00pm: YESCKA Art Opening

In 2011, Yescka founded guerilla-art.mx, a German-Mexican street art collective consisting of street artists and filmmakers. Born from the wish to spread intercultural art, the collective has successfully organized project trips and exhibitions, and has contributed to numerous street art festivals throughout Mexico, Germany, USA, Switzerland, Sweden, and Spain. These art projects question and take a critical look at our society. The observer is called upon to actively consider issues and injustices, thus preventing himself from becoming a mere consumer. Film documentation and fruitful collaborations with local artists play a central role in traveling with the guerilla-art.mx collective.

7:30pm – 8:00pm: Matiz Flamenco

Matiz Flamenco is back in the Mission, featuring singer/dancer Yuli Norrish, guitarist Laurel Lobovits, and dancers Yukie Takahashi, Maria Sanchez, Paz de la Carzada & Valentine Boisnard!

8:00pm – 8:30pm: San Francisco Youth Theatre

San Francisco Youth Theatre’s DREAM Ensemble performs excerpts from Gary Soto’s In & Out of Shadows, based on interviews with Bay Area undocumented teenagers. Directed by Cliff Mayotte. Music by Emily Klion & George Brooks.

8:45pm – 9:00pm: Leroy F. Moore Jr.

The Black Kripple Delivers will be a multi-media performance with a video trailer of an upcoming documentary about police brutality against people with disabilities by Emmitt Thrower, a retired New York cop who has a disability. The trailer will introduce Leroy Moore, aka The Black Kripple, as he continues with the theme of police brutality and other forms of violence against people with disabilities through spoken word performances.

9:11pm – 10:00pm: Kenya Moses & Adrian Arias / Open Hours

LOVE story in a BOX is a multi-disciplinary performance with sound and silence, joy and fear.

*The space will be open until 10pm for art viewing, music and conversation.

More on the Artists & Performers:

Photo credit: Yescka

Yescka started to make graffiti at the age of fifteen, later attending a college of art where he began to combine fine arts with street art. In 2006, there was a strong social and political movement in his state of Oaxaca. This urged him to communicate what was going on by revealing all the violence and experiences through art. At that point, Yescka, along with other artists from his city, founded a collective called ASARO, short for Asamblea de Artistas Revolucionarios de Oaxaca. They started to use their works to criticize the social and political situation in an attempt to re-integrate art into society.

“I feel that art right now is standing outside society because it belongs to a limited sector of galleries, intellectuals and museums. I believe, art is for everybody and that’s why we’re trying to create a link, so that the people can get in touch with art in their everyday lives again.” – Yescka

Katy Fox founded We Are Movement, a body literacy project, in 2012. Combining her background as large format printmaker and Hatha yoga instructor, she believes that when embodiment is brought into public space, it becomes a resource for greater self and civic engagement, as well as for individual and collective development. She has lived in San Francisco for 20 years.

Photo credit: Matiz Flamenco

Matiz Flamenco is a unique and inclusive flamenco organization. Their mission is to produce authentic and accessible flamenco shows, and to offer classes and opportunities to support future performers and aficionados.

Photo credit: SF Youth Theatre

San Francisco Youth Theatre is dedicated to creating cutting-edge theater for children and youth ages 4-24 throughout the Bay Area. SFYT provides a world-class platform for art-inspired youth to create and perform theater that tells the compelling stories of our community. The core values include personal expression through the arts, creativity, inclusiveness and changing the world, one play at a time.

Leroy F. Moore Jr. is a Black writer, poet, hip-hop/music lover, community activist and feminist with a physical disability. He has been sharing his perspective on identity, race and disability over the past thirteen years. His work began in London, England where he discovered a black disabled movement, eventually leading to the creation of his lecture series: “On the Outskirts: Race & Disability.” Leroy is co-founder and the Community Relations Director of the Sins Invalid performance project, and is also a contributing writer and performer for many itsshows. He is the creator of Krip-Hop Nation (a group of hip-hop artists with disabilities and other disabled musicians from around the world) and produced the Krip-Hop Mixtape Series.  In addition to founding several movements and organizations, Leroy is one of the leading voices around police brutality and wrongful incarceration of people with disabilities. He has won many awards for his advocacy from the San Francisco Mayor’s Disability Council under Willie L. Brown, to the Local Hero Award in 2002 from Public Television Station, KQED in San Francisco. Leroy is currently writing a Krip-Hop book with Professor Terry Rowden as well as his poetry/lyrics book, The Black Kripple Delivers Poetry & Lyrics.

Photo credit: Marc Hors

Adrian Arias is a Peruvian-born visual artist and poet. He has worked as the Multimedia Coordinator at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts since 2001. During years 1981-2001, Adrian was part of Arias & Aragon, comprised of two visual artists who are recognized as the pioneers of video-art in Peru. They are winners of important prizes for their artwork in Peru, France and Japan. Adrian’s visual art, video-poems and poetry have been exhibited all around the world, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Dominican Republic, Canada, U.S., Greece, Italy, France, Poland, Spain, and Japan. His video Frida in the Mirror / Frida en el espejo was an official selection at the SF Film Festival and was also the winner at the Berkeley Film & Video Festival in 2009. His poetry has also been awarded in Peru, Argentina, US and Macedonia. In 2010, Adrian had an Artist Residency at the de Young Museum of San Francisco.

“In my work I try to connect the real world with the world of the unknown, using the absurd and its aesthetic possibilities, poetry and performatic techniques” – Adrian Arias

More on the Programs:

Family Art is a free art program offered by the Red Poppy Art House every Saturday 1-4pm. The program proudly participates in the outstanding bimonthly arts festival, the Mission Arts & Performance Project (MAPP). Each alternating first Saturday of the month, Family Art expands upon its usual afternoon activities and reaches even deeper into the Mission community. The families, youth and volunteers are encouraged to partake in the organizational process, curating, presenting and, of course, performing. Activities are led by Sofia Elias.

The Mission Arts & Performance Project (MAPP) is a homegrown bi-monthly, multidisciplinary, unruly intercultural happening that takes place in the Mission District of San Francisco. The MAPP has produced over 65 neighborhood-level arts festivals since its inception. Instead of an “art walk,” the MAPP is a collage of 10-20 odd spaces transformed into micro art centers, focused on intimate artistic and cultural exchange among people. It was founded with some of the same organizational principles as the Red Poppy Art House (which still enthusiastically participates in MAPP as a neighborhood hub) as they both rely on the energy of the surrounding community, and operate with the help of many volunteers. Placing art and performance on the street level, MAPP utilizes such alternative spaces as private garages, gardens, living rooms, studios, street corners, and small businesses. At its heart, the MAPP shows how ordinary spaces can be made extra-ordinary through creative techniques.

For more information on the MAPP, visit the Poppy’s webpage or the MAPP website.