SueñoAmericano CCAI exhibition in WNC’s Bristlecone Gallery
The Capital City Arts Initiative presents its exhibition, #SueñoAmericano, by Lauren Cardenas at Western Nevada College’s Bristlecone Gallery, 2201 W College Parkway.
The Capital City Arts Initiative presents its exhibition, #SueñoAmericano, by Lauren Cardenas at Western Nevada College’s Bristlecone Gallery, 2201 W College Parkway. The exhibition will be in the gallery from July 21- Sept. 30. The college and CCAI will host an artist’s reception from5-6:30 p.m. Thursday, July 22. The gallery is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday. Using her photographs taken from in-flight airplane windows, Lauren Cardenas has printed the images on slices of American cheese as a metaphor for the anguish suffered by those being deported. “Being from Texas, the border has always been a tenuous territory. Yet, since 2016 the border situation has been pulled to the forefront of American Politics. Broadcasting the journey of Latinx refugees seeking the ‘American Dream,’ yet instead of welcoming arms, they are being met by deportment, racism, and their families severed,” she said. “Many were put on ICE Airplanes and given an American cheese sandwich, one of the most processed, commercialized, and symbolically ‘American’ things in this country. In #SueñoAmericano series, images of Latinx people and their flight views are printed on slices of Kraft Singles American Cheese to question the reality of the ‘American Dream,’ and its false promises of acceptance and opportunity for all.” As an artist who struggles with a bifurcated Mexican American identity, she said she is constantly reminded of the privilege afforded to her as a second-generation, white-passing, Latina woman raised in the upper-middle class. Almost half of my extended family has not completed college, let alone a graduate degree. Cardenas is a Latinx studio artist who focuses on print media. Her current body of work asks the viewer to question the connotations of everyday mundane objects. She is investigating her bifurcated Mexican American identity as a subject matter. Carlos Ramirez, a Western Nevada College Latino Leadership Academy student, provided a Spanish language translation of the exhibition’s wall text. For additional information, visit CCAI’s website at www.ccainv.org.
