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Projecting Art, a Long Island Collective Promoting Latino Art and Culture

Posted September 24, 2010 by Angel Canales

Hispanic Heritage month is celebrated in all different ways, from elementary school lessons on Latino leaders to family cultural festivals.

For Projecting Art, a 12 artist-member organization based in Patchogue, September offers an opportunity to accomplish the group’s mission – to showcase and promote contemporary Latino art and culture.

“The idea here is to find art and literature and use that to show our youth about their culture,” says Fabian Tacuri, an Ecuadorian immigrant artist, and one of the group’s founders.

On September 30, the organization will bring their newest exhibition to St. Joseph’s College in Patchogue, where they expect over 100 people. The show will feature contemporary figurative paintings with open-ended themes, both landscapes and portraits.

While Projecting Art was officially formed in 2007, the idea had been gestating for about a decade. During a 1997 symposium at the Ecuadorian consulate in New York City, Tacuri, 38, and fellow artist Fanny Rodriguez, 47, decided that they wanted to create a non-profit organization whose goal was to help narrow the gap between Latino and the Anglo culture and provide that service to the community for free.

“People think that we’re all day laborers and there’s more than that,” adds Rodriguez, who came to New York from Ecuador 20 years ago. “We also have our stories and intellectuals.”

Initially, the organization had only Ecuadorian artists and eventually began to welcome members of other nationalities. “If we want to represent Latin-American art, we need to have people from other countries,” says Tacuri. “That’s how people can get a taste of who we are, our traditions and virtues.”

Tacuri and Rodriguez haven’t always been able to concentrate so intensely on their art. Like many immigrants, when they arrived in the US, they had to focus more on earning money than being creative. Tacuri worked at a factory making cushions and Rodriguez also worked at a factory making ties.

“Art is what I loved the most and I needed to stay connected,” says Rodriguez, who is now a Spanish professor at Borough of Manhattan Community College.

Tacuri had a similar experience. ”When you come here you need to deal with getting settled and finding a job while you deal with what you left behind,” says Tacuri. “I used to do paintings on napkins and I wanted to project more than that.”

At present, a big part of the Project Art mission involves community immersion. The group’s artists go door-to-door to local organizations and provide workshops in the areas of painting, drawing, photography, literature, poetry, and video making. “Projecting Art is solely for art,” says Rodriguez. “We don’t depend on it monetarily to live our lives and we are just committed to provide art to the community.”

For Tacuri, Projecting Art is also about self-respect and pride. “We need our children to be proud of their parents, traditions and where they came from,” says Tacuri, who has two children. “They need to know that we have landscapes, dances, and that we have as much to offer.”

This past week, Tacuri provided two workshops for the freshman class at St. Joseph’s College in Patchogue, a warm-up of sorts for the upcoming exhibition. “It was a great way of connecting the campus community with the Latino community,” says Olga Rios-Soria, assistant Spanish professor at St. Joseph’s College. “It was very important to look at Latino culture in a positive manner.”

The organization also offers benefits for the artists. “Union makes the strength,” says Ursula Bustillos-Daza, a 30-year-old artist and Projecting Art member. “Being surrounded by so much talent with the same goals can’t be more satisfactory.”

The group hopes to have a permanent space in the near future to provide more workshops to a wider range of people. In the meantime, they’ll do what they know best: bring Latino culture to anyone who opens their doors.

For more information about Projecting Art, email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Images courtesy of Projecting Art.

Tags : art, ecuador, patchogue, projecting art