Urbano Project to Present Salvador Jimenez-Flores' TORTILLA SOCIAL Exhibition

Urbano Project will present the final phase of the community building art project Tortilla Social-an exhibition of prints created during workshops held throughout the city of Boston this fall.

A public reception on Friday, December 8, 6-9pm will celebrate the building of community by sharing food and art; and feature the premiere of the Mini Tortilla Social Documentary video co-produced by Salvador Jiménez-Flores, Faizal Westcott & Darren Cole.

The exhibition, on view December 8, 2017 - March 2, 2018, and the reception are free and open to the public. Urbano's Gallery at 29 Germania Street in Jamaica Plain is open Monday-Friday, 1-6pm and Saturday, 10-2pm.

Tortilla Social is an interactive printmaking and food workshop using a multi-functional tortilla press designed and led by Urbano Artist-in-Residence and NEFA Creative City Artist Salvador Jiménez-Flores. Transforming public spaces through the use of printmaking, the project is a tool for self-expression, advocacy and art education, creating community through the sharing of food and art.

The centerpiece of the project is a small, wooden mobile printing press made by the artist that is reminiscent of a tortilla press. Led by Jiménez-Flores in partnership with the Urbano Project, Tortilla Social utilized conventional and unconventional spaces for art and food throughout several Boston neighborhoods for a series of pop-up, interactive printmaking and food workshops. For the past couple of months, participants of all ages have had the opportunity to use the tortilla press to make their own art prints, and to eat freshly made tortillas, while learning a variety of printmaking techniques, experiencing gastronomical adventures, and connecting with other members of the community. The prints created during these workshops will be on view in the Urbano Project exhibition.

Jiménez-Flores, originally from Mexico but now based in Boston, sees his bicultural and bilingual identity as an opportunity to inhabit two different worlds. The challenge of navigating between these two sides of himself is often the subject of his work, which he uses to document his journey of adapting to life in the U.S.

Prints and t-shirts created by Salvador Jiménez-Flores will be on sale during the run of the exhibition - making great gifts that support art for social change.

Tortilla Social is made possible with funding by the New England Foundation for the Arts' Creative City Program, with funding from The Barr Foundation and with additional support from the Boston Foundation. Tortilla Social has also partnered with the Urbano Project and Hyde Square Task Force as community partners on this project.

Learn more about Tortilla Social at www.salvadorjimenezflores.com/tortillasocialevents.

This event is part of Urbano Encounters public programming in celebration of Urbano's eight years of art for social change.

ABOUT SALVADOR JIMÉNEZ-FLORES

Salvador Jiménez-Flores is an interdisciplinary artist born and raised in Jalisco, México. Since coming to the United States, Jiménez-Flores has contributed to the art scene by producing a mixture of socially conscious installation, public, and studio-based art. He has presented his work at the National Museum of Mexican Art, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, and Casa de la Cultura in Jalisco, México amongst others. Jiménez-Flores just finished a two-year artist residency at the Harvard Ceramics Program, Office of the Arts at Harvard University. He has also served as an Artist-In-Residence for the City of Boston. Most recently Jiménez-Flores was the recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant, and was awarded the Kohler Arts Industry Residency for 2019. He is Resident Teaching Artist at Urbano Project and a visiting artist at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. For more about Jiménez-Flores, visit www.salvadorjimenezflores.com.

ABOUT URBANO

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 617.983.1007.

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