Creative Conversations: Mark Menjívar in conversation with Chelsea Jones

biennial 2024 – mark menjivar – creative conversations

Mark Menjívar, I am for a school that makes you feel like the main character, 2023. From the series Looking Up (Voices from Jack Yates High School), 2023. Archival inkjet print. Courtesy of the artist. Commissioned by FotoFest.

 

Creative Conversations: Mark Menjívar in conversation with Chelsea Jones

Tuesday, March 19 | 5 PM

Silver Street Studios, 2000 Edwards Street
Free and open to the public.

FotoFest Biennial 2024 artist Mark Menjívar joins FotoFest Learning Program director Chelsea Jones for a conversation focused on Looking Up (Voices from Jack Yates High School) (2023), Menjívar’s new site-specific work created in collaboration with FotoFest’s Learning Program and students from Houston’s Jack Yates High School. Exhibited at George Bush International Airport Terminal E, Menjívar’s work is presented as an assemblage of large-scale images captured by Jack Yates High School students. Overlaying each of the images is a text penned by students responding to the question “What kind of school do you want to attend?” using the prompt “I am for a school that . . .” The responses range from a vision for schools that prioritize cleanliness and safety to schools that make space for empathy and understanding.

About the Speaker

Mark Menjívar is a San Antonio-based artist and Associate Professor in the School of Art and Design at Texas State University. His art practice primarily consists of creating participatory projects while being rooted in photography, oral history, archives, and social action. He attended McLennan Community College, holds a BA in Social Work from Baylor University and an MFA in Social Practice from Portland State University.

Menjívar has engaged in projects at venues including the Rothko Chapel, Eastern State Penitentiary, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, The Houston Center for Photography, The Puerto Rican Museum of Art and Culture, Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum, and the Krannert Art Museum. He has partnered on projects with many community organizations, including San Anto Cultural Arts, Bloom Project, Black Outside, Mitchell Lake Audubon Center, CAST Schools, Libraries Without Borders, and the H. E. Butt Foundation. Menjívar is the artist-in-residence with the Texas After Violence Project, a public memory archive that fosters deeper understandings of the impacts of state violence. He is also a member of Borderland Collective, which utilizes collaborations between artists, educators, youth, and community members to engage complex issues and build space for diverse perspectives, meaningful dialogue, and modes of creation around border issues.

Learn more about the FotoFest Biennial 2024, its exhibitions, and programming at fotofest.org/fotofest-biennial-2024.

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