URBANO ENCOUNTERS Exhibition About Creative Activism on View This Fall in Boston

Urbano Project will present Urbano Encounters, a retrospective exhibition chronicling Urbano's eight years of bringing together local youth and professional artists to create public participatory art projects as a catalyst for personal transformation, community cohesion and social change, September 21 - November 11, 2017.

Urbano's Gallery at 29 Germania Street in Jamaica Plain is open Monday-Friday, 1-6pm and Saturday, 10-2pm. An opening reception will take place on Thursday, September 21, 6-8pm.

"Urbano's programs have addressed themes of racial, ethnic, cultural, and urban identity and representation that are embedded in our society," says Founder and Executive Artistic Director, Stella Aguirre McGregor. "Urbano has been a dynamic space where an open exchange of ideas happens between artists, students, creative practitioners, and people who live in the community. This exhibition looks back at our history and ahead to the future."

Urbano Encounters, co-curated by Colombian-born curator/artist Julián Serna and Stella Aguirre McGregor, will feature various multidisciplinary, socially-engaged projects that have taken place at Urbano, including public interventions in the City of Boston, collaborations with professional artists, and the narratives of Urbano's Youth Artists.

Since 2009, Urbano has been a forum for creative communities to meet in conversation about their personal experiences in order to tackle difficult issues in their surrounding community through contemporary art, blurring the boundaries between art, society, and everyday life. Urbano has empowered youth artists with creative professional development preparing them for careers in variety of fields, while promoting the model of the artist as citizen, actively engaged in the critical issues of their communities and our City.

Urbano's public art projects include Nomadic Civic Sculpture, Harvesting Halls, Freedom Trail on Trial, Square Roots of Boston, Peace Line, Crossing Urban Boundaries, and Tell Me I Shouldn't, I'll Tell You I Wouldn't (a performance/digital media piece created by Urbano's teen artists in collaboration with dancers/choreographer DeAnna Pellecchia and Ingrid Schatz, along with composer Shaw Pong Liu in response to historic and contemporary acts of civil disobedience from Occupy Boston to the Tiananmen Square protests).

On view in Urbano Encounters will be selections from recent and historic exhibitions, including Nora Valdez's Immigration Nation, Pablo Helguera's Librería Donceles, Salvador Jimenez's I am not Who you Think I am, Daren A. Cole's Blue Hat, Gronk's Inside/out, Hannah Burr's Attendant, Lina María Giraldo's City Journalist, and Pedro Reyes' Palas por Pistolas.

In conjunction with the retrospective, Urbano will be presenting a series of events throughout the fall, including:

Create, Engage & Change: Urbano Project Open Studio, A HUBweek Spoke event
Tuesday, October 10, 2017 | 6:30-9:30pm

This Open Studio event will be a fun and engaging behind-the-scene opportunity to learn more about Urbano's collaborations with social practice artists, local organizations and Boston-area youth. Guests will enjoy a walk-through of the retrospective exhibition with Director/Founder Stella Aguirre McGregor, participate in interactive arts activities and hear from professional and youth artists.

Urbano x HUBweek
October 12-15

Urbano Project is thrilled to be participating in HUBweek, a first-of-its-kind civic collaboration and weeklong festival that brings together the most creative and inventive minds making an impact in art, science and technology. Visit with Urbano artist-in-residence Salvador Jiménez-Flores and Urbano Youth Artists at the City Hall HUBweek for performances and interactive arts experiences.

Other events at Urbano will feature performances by musicians and poets, and art making activities, while offering samples from local brewers and restaurants. Stay tuned, and check the website, www.urbanoproject.org, for up-to-date information.

Urbano Project brings together local youth and professional artists to ignite social change through place-based participatory art and performance projects. Together we foster future generations of creative and civic leaders committed to social justice.

Support for Urbano Project has been provided by the Barr/Klarman Foundations, The Boston Foundation, Surdna Foundation, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Boston Cultural Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Frank Reed and Margaret Jane Peters Memorial Fund, the Esther B. Kahn Charitable Foundation, the Paul and Edith Babson Foundation, the State Street Foundation and the generous support of individual donors. For more information, www.urbanoproject.org or call 617.983.1007.

Pictured: Crossing Urban Boundaries, with Alison Kotin, Risa Horn and Urbano youth artists.

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