Dream Machine Archive: Pocha Dream is an excerpt from a “psychodynamic audio and video tool” created by Mexican-American artist Natalia Rocafuerte to assist immigrant women with their own dream interpretation. Using a hotline that was open from 2020 to 2022, Rocafuerte collected dreams from callers in the Detroit metropolitan and South Texas border areas. She then created audio-visual pieces inspired by the dreams, layering distorted sounds and sights, manipulated voices, bright colors, and found images.
Poca Dream includes a dream titled Dream of Emma and Tony, which won Best Michigan Filmmaker 2021 at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the longest running experimental film festival in the nation. This excerpt also includes advertisements the artist distributed to recruit callers. Natalia Rocafuerta is a graphic artist, video editor, and recent graduate of the University of Michigan (MFA 2022). She grew up on both sides of the Rio Grande Border in Tamaulipas and Texas and became a naturalized US citizen in 2019.
Pablo O'Higgins American 1904–1983 El Mercado (The Market) from Mexican People portfolio, 1946 Lithograph on paper 15 x 17 5/8 inches Gift of Jack B. Pierson, 1987.31.8
Considered the most influential and progressive printmaking collective of its time, the Taller de Graficá Popular (TGP) was established in Mexico City in 1937. Following in the footsteps of Jose Posada, Los Tres Grandes and other political artists such as Francisco Goya and Honoré Daumier, the artists of the TGP used the medium of printmaking to address social and political issues as well as to explore their cultural heritage and create a Mexican identity. In 1946 the portfolio Mexican People was published, featuring 12 prints from artists of the TGP. This exhibition will examine the history of the TGP, the portfolio and their messages.
Related Programming:
Exhibition Opening Tour
May 9 | 6p | Graphics Gallery
Join Guest Curator, Collections Manager Heather Jackson in the Graphics Gallery for
No written record was left by indigenous peoples living in west Mexico 2,000 years ago, but the clay objects in this exhibition offer clues about how they viewed themselves and their environment. Ceramic sculptures depict men and women in various roles and activities, spanning ages from infancy to old age. Ancestors and rulers are shown to legitimize and memorialize important families. Daily life, whether ceremonial or informal, is suggested with figures who are eating, drinking, playing music and ballgames. Familial and societal bonds are represented through mother-and-child, man-and woman, and warrior figures. Facial gestures, bodily postures, and bodily ornament all suggest unique or group identities.
Spiritual beliefs are reflected in the predominance of shaman figures, symbolic objects, and, most importantly, the fact that these ceramics were buried with the deceased. Like other ancient cultures, these peoples held a strong belief in the afterlife. They buried not only objects conveying social status, but also items to use in the afterlife like clay vessels, shells, and clothing. In west Mexico during this period, burials for honored dead or beloved ancestors took the form of a vertical shaft leading down to a horizontal chamber, which was often underneath the home. Possibly burial chambers were reentered to pay homage to the dead with annual gifts of food and drink, a precursor for Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) annual celebration.
Related Programming:
MEMBERS PREVIEW
Theater Stories of Ancient West Mexican Art
May 10 | 6p | FIA Theater | FREE Admission
Kristi Butterwick Martens, Guest Lecturer
Dr. Kristi Butterwick will discuss the stories that ancient West Mexican art tells. From the portraits of leaders, family, and kinship, the ancient people created their universe in beautiful clay sculptures, showing relationships and feasting celebrations. While the ancient people do not possess a name such as the Maya, Aztec or Olmec, their ceramic sculptures are among the most astounding and detailed pieces in the Mesoamerican art lexicon. Taken as a whole, the collection from the family of Ted Weiner gifted to The Flint Institute of Art is a stunning capture of life around 2,000 years ago in the environs of Tequila and Colima volcanoes in western Mexico.
Kristi Butterwick Martens received her PhD in Anthropology from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1998. Her thesis was about Days of the Dead in ancient West Mexico. Her work has focused on ancient West Mexico since then. Dr. Butterwick’s research has resulted in publications and talks for the Chicago Art Institute, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, among major American museums. Currently she is researching the origins of agave production and pulque feasts in ancient West Mexico, based on art, archaeology and biology.
Come see the exhibition From Earth to Sky: Ancient Art of the Americas and enjoy entertainment and activities during Community day. You are invited to celebrate the ongoing musical traditions from the regions featured in the exhibition with a performance by El Ballet Folklórico Estudiantil.
El Ballet Folklórico Estudiantil is a non-profit organization focused on preserving Mexican culture and enriching children’s lives through dance, music, and education. For over 25 years, the organization has been a leader in providing Hispanic cultural programs to Michigan.
The entire family can also enjoy Gallery Learning Experiences and other activities throughout the day.
El Ballet Folklorico performance in Isabel Hall 2p-3p
South India, Karnataka/Maharashtra. Tussi/Thushi Necklace, late 19th century. Gold, precious stones, 19 in. Gift of Dr. Prasad and Jayashree Kommareddi. 2021.277
From prehistoric necklaces made of shells and bones to contemporary ornaments of gold and gemstones, jewelry is a universal form of adornment and one of the most accessible forms of art. Since the beginning it has had many functions; to represent cultural beliefs, to indicate status and wealth, to act as a fashion statement, to serve religious purposes, to symbolize relationships and rites of passage, to serve as a type of currency, and as heirlooms connecting families to their heritage, or in some cases to protect the wearer.
With its own mines yielding gold, diamonds, and many other precious and semiprecious stones India has been a vibrant center for wearable arts for centuries. Whether it is an opulent creation covering much of the body or a simple amulet worn around the neck on a cotton string, every detail holds important cultural connections. This exhibition will include jewelry worn for religious, ceremonial, and daily purposes and because every element of jewelry design in India is intentional, it will consider the importance of motifs from the natural and spiritual world. It will also explore why materials—like gold and pearls—are deeply symbolic and how they are utilized to create meaning beyond aesthetics.
Related Programming:
Kommareddi Lecture Series
Adorning the Self: Symbolism and Personal Identity
May 16 | 6p | FIA Theater | FREE Admission
Dr. Usha Balakrishnan, Guest Lecturer
In a museum setting, divorced from their ethnographic context and isolated from their cultural milieu, jewels are exhibited as just beautiful objects. However, they can form a unique visual legacy and metaphoric expression of dynamic societies, past histories, and design sensibilities. This lecture will delve into the rich tapestry of Indian history and culture through the lens of personal adornment. It will trace the intricate relationship between jewelry, attire, and the expression of personal identity, social hierarchy, and spiritual belief systems that have, since time immemorial, flourished on the Indian subcontinent.
Dr. Usha R. Balakrishnan is a cultural capital consultant and a highly regarded scholar of Indian art and culture. As a preeminent historian of Indian jewelry, she has been the former Indian representative for Sotheby’s, served on the expert committee of the Kerala Museum, and has worked for the Brooklyn Museum, New York, where she pioneered and steered the museum’s Mughal Jewellery project. She is presently Chief Curator of the World Diamond Museum.
A prolific author, some of Dr. Balakrishnan’s vast range of titles are Dance of the Peacock, a definitive volume on the five-thousand-year history of Indian jewelry; Jewels of the Nizams, the first publication on this renowned royal collection; Treasures of the Deccan, that brings together the fabulous Nizams’ jewels, artifacts and rare archival photographs; Enduring Splendor: Jewelry of India’s Thar Desert; Alamkāra: The Beauty of Ornament; India: Jewels that Enchanted the World; Splendours of the Orient: Gold Jewels from Old Goa; and Icons in Gold: Jewelry of India from the Collection of the Musée Barbier-Mueller. Her recent publications include Carnatic & Deccan: Bejewelled Past, and Munnu: Vision & Passion. She has curated, edited, and contributed to Diamonds Across Time, published by the World Diamond Museum. A forthcoming title includes Silver & Gold: Visions of Arcadia, The Amrapali Collection of Indian Jewellery.
She has curated jewelry conferences, and her work with museums has led her to curate key projects at Indian and international museums, as well as contribute essays to several museum exhibition catalogues.
Joyce J. Scott, American, born 1948. Yeller Girls, 2020. Glass beads, thread, peyote stitch 16 x 10 1/4 x 1/8 in. Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH.
For over 40,000 years artists across the world have used glass beads to create elaborate jewelry and sculpture; however, Baltimore-based artist Joyce J. Scott uses beads to communicate her activism and sense of social justice. She relates her work as an artist to her family's craft traditions and to her African American heritage. Drawing viewers in through vibrant color, humor, and satire she presents difficult themes such as racial inequity, violence against women, and politics, pushing the boundaries of the medium not only through her technique but through her narratives and messages.
While many of these issues are prevalent in the United States, Scott emphasizes that her artwork refers to cultures around the globe, stating that, “if we are going to work things out, we have to work together.” While the world has changed in many ways since Scott began working with beads, the artwork in this exhibition reminds us that there is still a long way to go. Themes that she explored in the 1970s and 80s are still found in artwork from the last decade. Even though she often addresses stereotypes in an uncompromising way, her hope is that one of these intricate artworks will leave a mark on the viewer and encourage them to fight against systemic issues to make the world a more joyous place.
In conjunction with the Flint Youth Media Project, the FIA will exhibit the award winners of the 2024 Flint Youth Film Festival. The Flint Youth Media Project introduces the art of filmmaking to people ages 13–30 and college students regardless of age. In addition to a series of free filmmaking workshops, the program provides opportunities for participants to share their work with peers, professional filmmakers, screenwriters, and the public.
