PREVIEW: MARGARITA CABRERA

Mexican-American artist, activist and organizer Margarita Cabrera orchestrates collaborative projects that live at the intersection of craft traditions, immigration policy, displaced peoples and border politics. Not content to make art about social issues, her projects serve as actions into the creation of fair working conditions and the protection of immigrant rights. The ensuing labor echoes that of factory workers – producing soft, sagging objects that reflect the unseen people behind the production.

Seeking to raise awareness as a strategy of survival, Cabrera explains, “Vinyl is often used to cover surfaces. I wanted to use it in the opposite way, to expose everything.” Her work is a platform to imagine in, and through the margins. It activates the thorny, but fertile space between manufacture and consumption, first world and third world, Mexico and the United States, and those trying to preserve cultural roots while laboring for a better life.

Cabrera will be in residence McColl Center for Visual Art from January 9 through February 19 as the Center’s Knight Artist-in-Residence. Her work is currently on view in The Space in Between exhibit at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, NC from September 15, 2011 through February 19, 2012. She was born in 1973 in Monterrey, Mexico and immigrated to the U.S. as a child. She achieved her MFA at Hunter College, NY and currently lives in the border city of El Paso, TX. She and SECCA wish to thank El Buen Pastor Latino Community Services, the Hispanic Arts Initiative, the Hispanic League of the Piedmont Triad, the UNCG Center for New North Carolinians, FaithAction International House, the International Center, OLAS (Organization of Latin American Students) at Wake Forest University, the Women’s Fund and all the people, organizations and community leaders that have supported The Space in Between.

Baby Grand Piano, 2005, Image Courtesy the Artist

H2 Hummer, 2006, Image courtesy of The West Collection at SAI