This interview is in Spanish. If you are watching on YouTube, for captions in English, you can select the CC button to turn on captioning, and then in the settings cog icon, you can change the captions to auto translate for English.

A transcription of the interview in English is available below.

Recibimos la visita del Colectivo Moriviví de Puerto Rico. Esta colectiva de mujeres artistas están de regreso en Holyoke para crear un nuevo mural ‘La Cultura es Poder’, el cual estará ubicado en 415 Main Street y será parte del proyecto artístico El Corazón de Holyoke.

Conversamos con las cofundadoras del Colectivo Moriviví, Sharon ‘Chachi’ González Colón, Raysa Rodríguez García y las artistas asistentes, Patricia Rivera Vega y Valeria Méndez Rosado. En esta charla conversamos sobre el proceso de la creación de este nuevo mural, la experiencia de integrar a la comunidad como parte del proceso creativo y la amplia visión de crear arte, educar, promover cultura visual, representación y activismo por parte del Colectivo Moriviví, quienes están celebrando su décimo aniversario.

‘La Cultura es Poder’ será inaugurado el 21 de abril de 2023 y es un trabajo posible gracias a la colaboración de Nueva Esperanza y UMass Amherst.

 

Para conocer más sobre el trabajo del Colectivo Moriviví, puede visitar su página colectivomorivivi.com

 

 

 

Puede escuchar la entrevista en formato de podcast

 

ENGLISH

We received a visit from Colectivo Moriviví from Puerto Rico. This collective of women artists are back in Holyoke to create a new mural titled ‘La Cultura es Poder’ (‘Culture is Power’), which will be located at 415 Main Street and will be part of El Corazón de Holyoke/The Heart of Holyoke art project.

We spoke with the co-founders of Colectivo Moriviví, Sharon ‘Chachi’ González Colón, Raysa Rodríguez García, and the assisting artists, Patricia Rivera Vega and Valeria Méndez Rosado. In this talk we discussed the process of creating this new mural, the experience of integrating the community as part of the creative process and the broad vision of creating art, educating, promoting visual culture, representation and activism by Colectivo Moriviví, who are celebrating their tenth anniversary.

‘La Cultura es Poder’ will be revealed on April 21, 2023 and is a work made possible thanks to the collaboration of Nueva Esperanza and UMass Amherst.

To learn more about the work of Colectivo Moriviví, you can visit its page colectivomorivivi.com

 

ENGLISH TRANSCRIPTION OF THE INTERVIEW

IOHANN – Holyoke Media (HM)

We are at the Holyoke Media’s Podcasting Station Number One. Here from One Court Plaza in Holyoke, MA. And I am very happy to welcome Colectivo Moriviví from Puerto Rico. Back in the city of Holyoke, working on one more mural to beautify our city and above all with a theme and a really colorful proposal, but also the meaning that it has culturally speaking for the representation that they bring us.

So we are going to talk with Raysa, Chachi, Valeria and Patricia, who are part of the Colectivo Moriviví who are visiting us here. Welcome and thank you.

RAYSA – Colectivo Moriviví

Thank you for bringing us here and for this space that once again gives us the opportunity to talk about our work.

HM

Tell us about how the work that Colectivo Moriviví has continued to do has been up to now, not only in Puerto Rico, but in other different cities and the reason why you are now here in Holyoke during this month of April working on this new mural.

RAYSA

Well, we are a collective and as you know, we are a collective of women artists who, since 2013, have been specifically working on murals and community muralism. In fact, this year, during this month we celebrate ten years of the Collective. It has been an interesting journey because we have learned a lot along the way, we have evolved from different aspects and I especially like how the collective has transformed up to now.

I know we still have a long way to go. For developing as well and exploring other areas, but I think we are well on our way to what we want. We have dedicated ourselves to doing muralism. Our participation in the festivals was what opened us to that field. But during that process of creating murals to end up on these festivals, we realized that we wanted something more.

We were aware that the themes we were working on had to be related to the space where these murals were located, but it didn’t seem like enough to us. And through this approach of other organizations that wanted to see developing murals for their organizations, for their projects, in support of these actions and those works that they were doing, we truly realized how important it was to integrate the community in all its process.

Not only talk about it from a foreign perspective, because we do not live in these places, we are not part of these spaces, but to be facilitators of that, that these people are the ones who decide what is going to finally be reflected in that space, giving them tools so that they can express themselves, they can explore their creativity, they can also share their narratives, their knowledge, their stories and what they think is relevant to have there, on that mural that in the end is going to stay in their space and they are the ones who they’re going to be constantly interacting with it.

We finish the mural and we leave. But it’s like that gift. That space where they not only paint together with us, but also what they are painting they thought, manifested or created together with us and they feel part of it.

CHACHI – Colectivo Moriviví

And they can paint with us too.

HM

That was one of the processes that I had the opportunity to see from your  early stage during the previous month, when you had online sessions with several youth from the community in Holyoke and together you worked from Puerto Rico as well as the youth here in Nueva Esperanza, in talking, exchanging perspectives on what are the different elements that represent the theme of the mural in which we are working now and finding out what those connections are, what is their meaning, their importance and I believe that this process is not only one of enrichment and exchange of ideas, but also one that specifically provides youth in the community in Holyoke with a level of belonging and feeling that they are in control of their own narrative.

Regarding what they are going to see in that mural, they had an essential part in the decision of those elements that are there. How have you seen this effect during your different interactions creating your murals, the result you have with the community?

CHACHI

The community process is something that we have been developing, refining and improving over the years. And not all spaces always have the ideal time that should be dedicated to this process. But we do have a basic structure that was the one we can work on for this project, in which at least we have several workshops before coming here to paint.

In this case, there were two of them and the first workshop always helps us break the ice, get to know each other, because establishing that relationship of “we are not just another teachers who come here to do a project”, but to get to know each other and talk more as equals. We also not only offer the workshop, but we always participate in the exercises in each process, so we try to make the relationship more horizontal in that sense and these projects never happen in a vacuum, there are already things happening and initiatives happening.

This in this case was already and has been happening for some time and articulating the “Corazón de Holyoke/The Heart of Holyoke”; Contributions come from other places, and in this case, UMass is also involved. There was already a defined theme, there was a theme that they were interested in working with and that was the visual culture that is like our jam, because that’s what we try to do.

I believe that the whole purpose of creating murals is exactly that, to create a visual culture that exposes the things that are happening in our communities, their knowledge, their narratives. So we started the workshop by basically breaking the ice on the creative side. In the introduction, for example, we say “tell us your name”, but also “share the color you feel today.”

And there we go articulating that relationship with art. Color is something that has no meaning in itself. But we humans give it meaning and we continue to build on it. In this case, we had the topic, we have extensive discussions, we brainstorm the concept. A dynamic that we really liked to use is that we bring key questions and the community can write their answers and they are shared as a group, because always writing first helps us not to put people “on the spot” who have to think and answer you.

And that is what makes that discussion richer. So, the second part of the discussion is about visual elements that we usually also bring some exercises to approach what visual elements are and how to approach visual elements to understand how we establish these relationships with images.

We have exercises for that too and they are a kind of preparation so that when we go into that discussion, we can really think of creative images and not go to the most basic or perhaps to the sometimes even more hackneyed connections that can occur. That is something that we also talk about: How to differentiate a cliché, versus what it is to articulate a composition?

And the goal is to get this list of elements and based on that list of elements, we proceed to prepare the sketch and the sketch is also presented in a group session and people can tell us “Look, we do see what we talked about in the sketch , we feel good” or “we feel that this is missing or we can make a change to these colors or add these elements.”

RAYSA

Or if there are two sketches, sometimes they decide to merge it, which can also happen.

CHACHI

Yes. We have presented more than one sketch and perhaps some of them are more interested for X reason, but elements of this that are not present in the other would like to be there. And we make that integration and those changes for that very reason, so that there is that sense that this was consulted, that the community knows what is going to be put on the wall beforehand and when it is approved, then it is basically production and preparation to organize the community painting.

RAYSA

Yes. In fact, before coming here, I along with another assistant, developed and prepared the fabrics, we premium them, and map projected the drawing to travel with the fabrics here already ready, to then do the color mapping to be able to have it available for the community painting. One of them was on Saturday and the other is going to be given today.

HM

One aspect that really catches my attention is how you use the technique by means of map projection in space. Obviously we are talking about a much larger mural than the murals created in 2019 at the Holyoke Public Library, for which an even more complex process is required. Can you tell us a bit about the process of sectioning those different parts and also the materials that are being used, in which the community had the opportunity to be able to paint directly on them?

Also, what happens after these materials have already been painted and then comes the installation process as such?

RAYSA

Well, color mapping was something that we developed over time. First we did it as a “color by number”, which we sometimes applied, but it is a little more complex in the sense that perhaps by number, it is too much or depending on the characteristics of the project, we do it by name or by number, or we simply say “look, this is the red that goes there”, and color mapping helps us to make the first thing they see and one of the first things that the participants tell us when painting, that they tell us that they don’t know how to paint, so the color mapping formula gives them that space so they feel safe to fill in a color that’s super easy. It’s like coloring.

We also do it that way so that see how little by little the image that you saw at the beginning in the design is being built through colors, that these colors are the base colors. They are what give the painting its body, because once all the colors of the elements are filled in, if there are some that we understand need to be refined, that is, retouching the edges or if there are details or elements that need to be develop them even more, that they will be of a more realistic image with their lights and shadows, that’s where we enter.

But it is a way to make it friendly for everyone, because unfortunately the arts are not as accessible as we would like them to be and only a certain percentage of humanity decides to continue in the world of the arts, be it music, writing, and we are those people who specialize, but the reality is that art lives in us.

We are born and the first thing we do when we are babies is dance, sing, draw and we lose that over time, either because of the educational system and this whole conception of what we have to be as human beings and that culture is seen as a hobby or as something that is not given importance in many aspects, and they lose it.

It really is a practice and we recognize that we all have the ability to do it simply because some of us lost it in the process or we don’t see it as something we can do or maybe we don’t have the interest, that this can also happen.

But this process of color mapping helps us to make these people feel good and to simply be in a state of relaxation that, as one of the girls who participated in the painting said, was “peaceful” for her. It is that, that they also do not feel stress from what they are doing. It is also a healing space and is therapeutic.

CHACHI

It is not just saying, “I painted there”, but also that community paintings serve therapeutic purposes, that one of the greatest benefits of art and for the reason that we believe it should be more accessible to people.

HM

The theme of this mural and the text that can be read on it says that “Culture is power.” Can you tell us a bit about the different elements that were discussed and decided together to create this mural?

CHACHI

Yes. As we mentioned before, the basic theme was visual culture. Therefore, when we brought the questions to the group, we first focused on understanding everything that visual culture encompasses, because visual culture is very broad and not only restricted to what people often think that culture is perhaps what which is in museums, but culture is not limited to that.

Culture is literally everything that people produce as a social group. And visual culture is the visual aspect of that. The visual aspect is not limited to what we consider traditional art or what we consider crafts. Also what is seen in the media is part of our visual culture. The aesthetic that different communities create in their environment is literally part of visual culture, so we teach them to be able to identify those elements.

And when we went to those elements, the images on the mural began to emerge. One of the first things that was mentioned was the Puerto Rican flag and that is why we worked on a design with colors that go accordingly and are also present there, in addition to having some identifiable flags; not protagonists, but identifiable from Puerto Rico.

They also told us a lot about the generational contrast between culture: how the same Puerto Rican culture had these generational contrasts where perhaps the classic and what this group saw as traditional was the bomba, the salsa, the merengue, the bachata, the same aesthetic as to share with the family because the ladies were there.

And this identified them more with perhaps the older generation who see them as mentors and teachers of the culture, because many of these students, most of them were born here, raised here.

And they also contrasted it with their culture that they consume, which is very, very active and very present in music and urban culture, which is why the mural has, in addition to including and mentioning the different genres of music and have the bomba circle in front, all this that is happening with the colors we try to give that aesthetic that the most youthful urban culture has and that is why it also comes out, like that music comes out of the windows, because I think that is something that Puerto Ricans have not lost at any time.

It’s like “look, we put music everywhere…”

RAYSA

And very loud!

CHACHI

…to share it with everyone, everyone who is close by. So there’s all these different genres coming out that blend into the mix of colors and let you know where they came from. Because the reality is that all these genres have an influence and are born from Afro musical genres.

And that’s why literally the basic rhythm of the bomba you can identify in salsa, you can identify it in merengue, you can identify it in reggaeton. That’s why it’s like this.

The other element that they told us is that in popular visual culture their community is not usually presented as successful and they wanted the mural to represent their community as successful. And that’s why you can literally see the buildings above, with the aesthetic that you recognize from here, but below are the businesses in the community, like these businesses that have been around for a long time, that there are many that are very Puerto Rican, there are others that have been there for a long time and they represent how the community is working and flourishing and that is why they are there too.

RAYSA

Also something that interested them, because one of the questions was how they envisioned their community in the future? And they mentioned a lot that they wanted to see their community prosperous. That’s why the vibrant colors, the presence of the businesses and we also played a little with the porch, the idea that all this also comes out of the window as what we visualize also of what we bring with us from Puerto Rico or from where we originally lived or where our generations come from, our ancestors. How do we bring what is culture and appropriate it and adopt it here in the diaspora to survive because after all, it is what keeps these people alive, keeps them within all the hustle and bustle and everything that comes with it, to work and try to live in this space looking for a better future.

Well, that’s what culture is. It is what emanates and what keeps us together within all these circumstances and all the problems and situations that happen daily. And that too, as these people take that with them when they travel. And what else on the mural…?

CHACHI

I think I’d just add that perhaps the images that are there now are not so understandable, but the thing is that the building literally has some windows, so we are going to use the architectural element that the building already has so that all that comes out from them. So that’s not painted because it’s going to be painted on the wall.

RAYSA

And the crowd is very present also because well, Puerto Ricans are like that, we always come as a group, not alone. Besides that our families are also huge.

CHACHI

Latinx families are gigantic.

RAYSA

Yes. We also wanted the mural to project that, that sense of community and many people, but united in these third spaces. Because it is also important to keep in mind the third spaces, which are those places that keep communities alive. And when the governments decide to close them or get us out of there, they are affecting us because we need to socialize, we need to share this with other people beyond work, beyond our home and our relatives.

And I also think that, beyond the presence of businesses that perhaps can be seen as a promotion to these places, it is much beyond that. The participants identified these places as important because they are their third spaces where they consume daily, share with other people.

HM

As Colectivo Moriviví and now knowing that you are celebrating your 10th anniversary in 2023, it has been a process of learning, but also of teaching and not only through the different workshops and opportunities to connect with the communities that have participated in the creation of their murals, but also as the collective itself. You have had the opportunity to integrate, include and involve different artists and people interested in being part of the work, as is the case now with Valeria and Patricia, who are with us.

How has your experience been so far as part of Moriviví and also you (Raysa and Chachi) as mentors, being able to offer these opportunities for artistic and professional growth and development to emerging artists?

PATRICIA – Colectivo Moriviví

Hello, my name is Patricia. This would already be my second job with the collective and both have been outside the island, so my experience has been one that is the opposite of what I live on the island, so I am a sponge and I am here to learn everything and also to empathize with the community and what is experienced here and try to process it, assimilate it while I am here.

VALERIA – Colectivo Moriviví

Hello my name is Valeria. This would also be my second experience working with the collective and I would say it has been an eye-opening experience. I have been able to see muralism from another perspective because I feel that they work on it in a very empathetic way. They empathize with the community, they get involved with the community and that is admirable.

It has also been a good experience… I have been able to learn a lot, I have been able to offer what I know to the community, to them, and get involved a little more with the diaspora, which I feel is super important.

HM

What has been for you the experience of seeing, for example, at the community painting session on Saturday, to see different members of the community and particularly to see young children coming in and really throwing themselves into painting and feeling so involved in this process? What does this represents to you? Especially for having been involved in the preparation, in generating the ideas, but then also in preparing the materials, because this is also an intensive job that one assumes that the paintings are just already there, but it is a job of looking for the paintings, to choose the right colors, make the specific mixture so that it acquires the tone and is specifically necessary for it.

How has this experience been for you?

PATRICIA

Well, for me it has been very enriching not only to see children who are ready to paint quickly, that is very emotional, a lot, but also to see people who are masculine, like we don’t often see men in that space of vulnerability where they allow themselves to paint colors and what colors do they paint, especially like pink and all the ones that are considered feminine and how they like it and don’t want to stop. At one point they are questioned like “do you want to do it, or don’t you want to do it?” “I’m going to try it” and then you see them, who are completely wrapped up. It is very cute.

VALERIA

Yes, for me the experience of sharing with other people has also been very nice, getting to know them too. People of different ages arrive, you see children as well as older people, super motivated to get involved with the piece and say “I heard this on the news and I wanted to come here and I wanted to be part of it.”

It is so beautiful! And get to know them a little bit, see how excited they are seeing the design and it’s worth all the effort of mixing, mixing badly, having to redo other colors, fill in because that color ran out and you have to do it again. All that chaos with that material preparation can be, definitely pays off when there is a community painting and you see how people get involved.

HM

And how do the mentors feel about seeing this development?

CHACHI

Oh, well, we… I always say that we learned the hard way.

We had training in painting, but we had never done murals at the time we did our first mural and all these years have literally served to learn and improve in the process and when we first came to the United States, in 2016, we visited New York. It was an eye-opening experience to see the community organization that occurs here, which is very different from what occurs in Puerto Rico, and to see how there has already been a school of community muralism in the United States for a long time, since the 70’s.

And artists who work on community murals here received very specific training to do it and then they do it. We do not. We learned to paint in Puerto Rico on a large wall based on our knowledge as artists.

We learned things that sound pretty obvious, but really until you do them you don’t realize you need really large amounts of color for a lot of reasons, because it’s not just that it gives you paint, it’s that it dries very quickly. You need more because you are constantly going to lose layers on top. They can be turned because we are on stairs, scaffolding, crane and you have to look…

RAYSA

Or you just stumble on them.

Because you’re stepping back to see what you’re doing.

CHACHI

These are things that sound pretty obvious. They really aren’t that obvious at first and we learned all of this by doing it. And it was not easy. It was complicated. It was difficult. And when we saw, when I mention the community organization, which is very different, it is because learning in the context of Puerto Rico, community organizations do not occur from being Puerto Rican or Latinx.

Not here, here is the community that exists between being Puerto Rican, being Latinx, being from X social group, or even race, and they are spaces to defend and protect the rights of these people. So your identity automatically makes you an activist and makes you politically organized and have to seek community. While in Puerto Rico they occur more according to situations.

RAYSA

Or needs. Specific needs such as being a woman or being from the LGBTIQ+ community or being black.

CHACHI

Afros in the Afro-descendant community, but also like María, for example, when the hurricane occurs, or when X situation occurs, Puerto Ricans organize to address this situation that we have now.

RAYSA

Either the earthquakes or the pandemic.

CHACHI

Something very, very common in Puerto Rico, which is the food situation. There are different types of organizations that serve you. For example, we have soup kitchens because there is a need, but we also literally have food justice, from the sowing. And there are these others that are like these ways to solve these problems that we have and the political umbrella under them.

It’s like super wide, because everyone needs food. So you’re going to work with people who don’t agree with everything you think, constantly. And here, precisely because of the resistance that is lived, because of the experiences that are lived, there is probably a greater need to be… to be radical.

In Puerto Rico, not necessarily. And seeing how they were organized, what the process is like, because in the dynamics of calling, doing and involving the youth, we saw that here well managed. When we arrived we saw that it was like “wow there are all these community centers”. Really, literally, every time we work in a diaspora community, we are working with a community space, a non-profit organization, which is a community space, meeting spaces.

And enrich ourselves on both sides so that we can then create our techniques that we have been perfecting over the years and they have cost us a lot, they have cost us travelling, they have cost us exposing ourselves and venturing to do new things, because we greatly appreciate having learned from that, but we believe that other people can have an easier time than us and we believe that it is important to teach artists to do this, that your art has to do with the community, that your art benefits the community, where you are putting it?, where are you creating it?

Because art also has a history closely linked to power. And with that we have to be careful. You have to navigate that area with great caution, because obviously we are workers and we need to literally earn money and I think that sometimes where artists lead you also has to do with surviving. I touch that very carefully, but definitely everything we have learned needs to be teachable and replicated; that other people have the opportunity to learn these techniques.

The technique we use is something from here in the United States. We got to know it for the first time when we met artists from here and for the community painting that we did in Puerto Rico directly on the wall, because the fabric has its benefits because we can do it in a covered place, we can make it accessible to different people.

Not always, not all of the wall is accessible, not everyone can be in the sun painting, that is, older people, people with functional diversity, it is not necessarily comfortable to be there and the canvas allows us to work that way. So after learning all this knowledge along the way, we want to make it easier for others and for more of this to be done in Puerto Rico, which is really needed.

HM

Art as a form not only of expression, but of survival and also of educating through activities that raise awareness, that form identity, pride, that liberate, that heal and that at the same time connect the communities involved in this development .

I think that the work that you are doing, as Colectivo Moriviví, is very important and of great value, not only because of the cultural and artistic value that you are bringing with your work, but also because of the legacy that is embodied as we had it in 2019, with the murals at the Holyoke Public Library, which are a captured moment in the history of Puerto Rico and Holyoke, which also reflected the interactions that occurred at that time with those who participated in that project.

And we are seeing how this process is repeated again with this mural, which during this period of spring 2023 in a situation so different from what was being experienced in 2019 and continues to be that reflection, is a very, very important work. Just as important as not only recording history, but helping to write it itself.

And in that sense I want to acknowledge and show my appreciation for the work, for that work and that commitment you have with art, with culture, with identity and with the community.

RAYSA

Thank you.

HM

Well, this is our conversation with the Colectivo Moriviví who are visiting here in Holyoke with the creation of this mural, which is being made in collaboration with Nueva Esperanza and UMass Amherst.

The official presentation is scheduled for the end of April, is that right?

RAYSA

I understand that 21 (of April) is the revealing.

HM

So from April 21st, this mural will be ready and available for the public to enjoy. And we continue to see how Holyoke is embellished and continues to have samples of the artistic and cultural representation of the community that forms it. And what better way to see it also through the work and contribution of a group of young women artists from Puerto Rico, who are not only bringing their art, they are helping art to flourish, develop and to happen right here with the community.

Anything else you want to add?

RAYSA

We are very excited about the outcome of this project. Yes, it’s always new to us, like every time we finish a mural, even though we have an idea in our head of how everything is going to turn out, always when we finish it’s like, wow! We get along a lot, we take a lot with us, I think that’s the most important thing.

Perhaps we are giving to the community, but the community gives us much more and connecting with the diaspora is very important. We have learned it and we see this as a bridge, as a bridge that we are building little by little, not only for ourselves, but for the people who are on the island, who see what we are doing in the United States and make them aware. that people live outside of Puerto Rico and that it is important to be related and connected to each other, because if we don’t have them, who are we going to have? They have been the ones who have been there when hurricanes Irma and María passed and other situations and it is strength, it is that union that we must have so that our archipelago can sustain itself and can resist and can eventually grow and get out of where it is.

CHACHI

And it has been very nice to actively return to Western Mass. again, because we had the pandemic and basically we did not travel for two years and time passed. Holyoke changed, Western Mass. has changed and now we’re coming back and really the invitations are still happening, so we see that we’re going to be coming back a few times in the future and it’s resuming that very fast and very nice relationship again.

PATRICIA

I am super grateful and I also feel super proud to be part of this group and I also consider it a super privilege to be part of this experience.

VALERIA

Equally, super grateful for everything they offer us, all the knowledge that I take from this experience and that I hope to continue sharing with them.

HM

This is Colectivo Moriviví visiting the city of Holyoke and we hope that this work will continue for many more years and that they will continue to return. May they continue to beautify the city of Holyoke and the Valley in general. Different spaces in Springfield have also had the joy of having their participation and the art they have left there.

And I hope you feel that way, that this is like being at home, this is like being in Puerto Rico, because at the end of the day we are in the city with the highest concentration of Puerto Ricans outside the island, so I hope you are made to feel you really are not very far from the island.

RAYSA

We definitely feel at home.

CHACHI

And speaking Spanish.

HM

This is Colectivo Moriviví here in Holyoke and we look forward to seeing more of this art and remember that this is also all part of El Corazón de Holyoke/The Heart of Holyoke art project and several of these pieces are available for public enjoyment throughout all that is Main Street. But there are also a few other pieces out there hiding. At some point, I think it will be interesting for us to take a tour to revisit and discuss together each of these pieces, their meaning and their impact today.

Meanwhile, let’s continue to enjoy art, the art of being together and being as a community.

I am Iohann Rashi Vega and you are watching Holyoke Media.