The UMOCA has another new exhibit in town for your viewing pleasure called whereABOUTS. A culmination of Jamie Salvador Castillo and Michael Anthony García’s, whereABOUTS is an immersive art installation for UMOCA’s Art Truck. The project encourages community members to investigate mapping as a visual tool for understanding, expressing and building relationships between place, identity and community.
In addition to providing opportunities for the Art Truck’s 10,000 visitors to explore their own neighborhoods through individual map-making, whereABOUTS integrated participants’ maps into the truck installation. As viewers used these maps to learn about experiences other than their own, whereABOUTS became a creative space for connecting diverse communities.
This museum exhibition in the final component of the whereABOUTS project. Castillo and García interpreted and reconfigured student maps, creating a new iteration of the work that emphasizes the ways in which youth navigate and find meaning in their communities.
A multidisciplinary artist, García focuses predominantly on found-object sculpture, installation, and performance art. García has also worked extensively as an independent curator, co-founding the powerhouse art collective Los Outsiders and curating many large-scale exhibitions for both local and international artists. A passionate creator, García has won multiple awards for both his curatorial and sculptural work.
Jaime Salvador Castillo is an independent curator and the current Arts Commissioner of District 2 for the City of Austin. He was the Chair of the Curatorial Board for Generous Art from 2014-2015, a founding member of Los Outsiders art collective until 2015, the portfolio advisor for “Young Artists @ Arthouse,” and a contributing arts writer for The Austin Chronicle. Castillo has organized public discussions and curated local, regional and national artists in exhibitions. Castillo’s current project, Eyes Got It, is an open art competition offering critical reviews and exhibition opportunities.
The opening reception for the exhibit of these two artists is on August 25, from 7 to 9 pm. The exhibit runs from August 12 to December 9.
