Cuesta College showcases works of nine Mexican artists living on the border of San Diego and Tijuana 

Once part of the same country but separated by barriers both tangible and intangible, California and Tijuana have a complicated relationship.

The tension and connection between the two regions inform the works of the nine Mexican artists whose work currently graces Cuesta College's Harold J. Miossi gallery. The Outsiders from the Other Side, on display through Oct. 11, showcases the cultural, social, and creative practices linked to the dynamic border region.

"Sean messaged me about this show that he had put together with this Mexican artist who he had met in a real kind of fortunate way, and that's Damariz. She and him had constructed this show with his space and with her finding the artists and kind of putting everybody together," Tim Stark, Harold J. Miossi Art Gallery's Curator told New Times. "So, I went down there and saw the show, and it struck me instantly as a really important chance to highlight the voices of these unique artists that were being able to export their own views of identity and of experiencing the culture that exists right along the U.S.-Mexico border."

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• Photo By Samantha Herrera
• A LOOK BACK Visual artist Dada's art has been influenced by pop culture, skateboarding, and graffiti, and his mural Danzante highlights one of the most important rituals for the Yaqui and Mayo communities that live in Sonora and Sinaloa. This dance represents the natural world, and its movements, sounds, and music, as well as its paraphernalia and clothing, allude to the deer.

The collection of pieces was originally showing at Track 16, a gallery in Los Angeles, and Stark said he knew he had to show them in San Luis Obispo—and he was fortunate enough to find a time that worked for everyone.

The Outsiders from the Other Side hosts the distinctive work of Acamonchi, Alejandro Zacarias, Basura Innecesaria, Damariz Aispuro, Dada, Hermanos De La Torre, Mariel Miranda, Ris Byron, and Toni Larios.

Aispuro told New Times that working with Track 16 and with Stark at Cuesta has given her the opportunity to openly express herself through her work.

"It was a good experience to work with these guys because they as a gallerist taught me and showed me many things that I didn't know as an artist," she said. "So, for me, it was a very good and nice experience to work with these two guys because here in Mexico, or even in Tijuana, we have a lot of men in charge of the galleries and they're very machistas, so it was very hard for me to work with them."

Growing up on the streets of Tijuana, Aispuro said her work is influenced by her childhood and what she's seen living in the city.

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• Photo By Samantha Herrera
• REPRESENTING ME Created by Damariz Aispuro, same shit is a dystopian image of her childhood. Walking through the street while listening to music, Aispuro said this is her life experience.

Aispuro's work is joined in the exhibition by other artists, including Dada who's a visual artist from both Tijuana and San Diego and takes influences from pop culture, skateboarding, graffiti, music, painting, photography, and graphic arts.

Fellow featured artist Zacarias, who's lived in Tijuana since 1970, makes his art with a variety of techniques, including "painting, recycling, intervention and installation of public and private spaces," according to his artist statement.

"It's also a sense of surviving, getting a lot of materials to make money with or building something with that. ... Why, it's almost like recycling centers that you're going to see in Zacarias' work," Dada said during the Aug. 28 opening celebration and artist panel at Cuesta College. "That's how a lot of things in Tijuana are made and since the migration is ... heavy, it's nonstop, there's a lot of people trying to make a living or trying to survive with the flow of the city that have to adapt to recycling materials."

In Zacharias' piece Mirón II, he used recycled hardware, wood, wallpaper, and other metal parts.

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• Photo By Samantha Herrera
• REUSE, REDUCE, RECYCLE In Mirón II, Alejandro Zacharias used recycled hardware, wood, wallpaper, and other metal parts.

"In Tijuana all the maquiladoras, which are the factories where they can no longer exist in the United States because of safety regulations, wages, and environmental impact, send them over the border and then Tijuana becomes a large, big-screen manufacturing plant where everyone from South America is getting jobs at," Acamonchi said during the panel. "When the TVs are done, they're sent back to the United States, but there's a lot of residues, a lot of industrial waste that stays in the city, and it's all up in a landfill or somewhere."

This is when Zacarias will go for a walk and pick stuff out of the leftover parts that he finds interesting and can repurpose into sculpture.

"So that's how part of his work comes about, but also, we all recycle, we all repurpose without even thinking," Acamonchi said. "In Mexico people are forced to repurpose things, and that emotion, that feeling, and that necessity get passed on from generations that find a different use for it but don't throw it away." Δ

Reach Staff Writer Samantha Herrera at [email protected].