FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: The Land of Milk and Honey Awarded Mellon Foundation Grant
The MexiCali Biennial is delighted to announce support from the Mellon Foundation for its upcoming program The Land of Milk and Honey with a two-year $150,000 grant. These funds will enable the traveling exhibitions and adjacent programs to meet the full potential of the curatorial vision. The Land of Milk and Honey, beginning in September 2022 and continuing throughout 2023, will focus on the ideological concept of Agriculture in the regions of California and Mexico. This program invites contemporary artists to engage with concepts of labor, food (in)security, environmental issues, farming practices and food justice in the areas’ shared narrative. Biennial co-founder Luis G. Hernandez states, “the Mellon Foundation support will help us have a more comprehensive program at the US/Mexico border that will benefit artists, art spaces, the public, and cultural workers from the region living on either side.” Biennial co-founder Ed Gomez states, “since its inception as an artist-run collective, the MexiCali Biennial has strived to provide opportunities and bi-national exchanges for artists from many communities. Being awarded a Mellon grant will enhance our programming capacity and allow us to fully realize our mission and dedication to the arts.”
The Land of Milk and Honey (LoMaH) will include group art exhibitions that will take place throughout California, an area that encompasses both sides of the border, at several partnering institutions including the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture of the Riverside Art Museum, Steppling Art Gallery at San Diego State University Imperial Valley Campus (Calexico) and Planta Libre Espacio Experimental (Mexicali) among others. Adjacent programming will include panel discussions, artist lectures, and community-based workshops, as well as research-driven border-focused projects in partnership with the Library of Congress, Hispanic Reading Room. LoMaH curators are Ed Gomez, Luis G. Hernandez, Rosalía Romero, Ph.D., and Enid Baxter Ryce with Curatorial Assistance and Project Management by April Lillard-Gomez. An expanded list of partners as well as information on past programs can be found at mexicalibiennial.org.
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About the Mellon Foundation: The Mellon Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and we believe that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom to be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive.
About the MexiCali Biennial: The MexiCali Biennial is an artist-run contemporary arts and culture organization that focuses on the area encompassing California and Mexico as a region of aesthetic production. The organization is migratory in nature and showcases exhibitions on both sides of the California/Mexico border. The MexiCali Biennial was originally started as a project critiquing the proliferation of international and regional art biennials and as a result, may be shown at any time and at any location.