By Valeria Asencio
Reopening and Plans
“We have been closed since March 2020 due to the pandemic and reopened during the first days of December 2021. We are now slowly returning to our normal activities. Last year we held Christmas concerts with the Sanmiguelense Orchestra and we are now ready to open art training workshops, from visual arts to music. We are also looking at the possibility of some literary events. There will be an art exhibition of etchings by Enrique Diaz. The images address the pandemic through etchings. There will also be another exhibit by artist Minerva Cuevas, focusing on criticism of the privatization of water. These will take place between the end of January and the beginning of February.”
Measures
“Temperature taking, hand sanitizing, and optional sanitizing of personal things.
The bookstore has been moved to the Literary room. In general, a reassignment of the spaces was made to take into account health safety for all. For example, the upper floor is now only for accessible to students and collaborators.”
What we learned from the Pandemic.
“It was a blow to have been closed for so long. But we have been coming back little by little, and responsibly. We have learned to have new security measures for our collaborators and visitors. We learned that each one has different requirements, and you have to know how to handle it.”
Was there more creativity?
“Many independent theater projects centered on the theme of closeness between people. In art, one might think that the pandemic was a good reason to go into hiding. Instead, artists were creating and questioning where the pandemic was taking us. Enrique Díaz is a clear example of this. He is a graduate of the Esmeralda School of Fine Arts whose etchings have now focused on the theme of the pandemic—The Sneeze, The Fall, and Images—are some of the examples.”
“In one of the rooms at the Nigromante Cultural Center are the works of artist Ana Gómez. As you go around the room you find it filled with ceramic pieces and molds everywhere. Strangely, the molds are all exposed, but it is because they are also part of the exhibition. Could we say that it is the concave and convex of ceramic pieces and other materials? The object, as well as the mold, are protagonists in the exhibition. She explains it best in her own words.”
