Some Answered Questions about us and our “Walking Altars”
Ruth Buentello, collective member, answered a few questions. We’ve been very lucky to get some interest for our first collective performance at Luminaria this year. Here are some of the questions we wanted to share.
first a bit about our Collective:
Más Rudas came together as collective while working at various arts organizations like San Anto Cultural Arts and ArtPace in 2009. Initially, our goal was have one all female group show and after seeing the successful of that show, we decided to continue to make art together and formed Más Rudas officially.
Our work evolved into designing fully-collaborative, multi-media installations that promote dialogue about our personal and social identities as Chicana/Tejana women from San Antonio. Each installation theme varies depending on the exhibition and can include video, photography, painting, sculpture, fiber, performance, audio, and text. All our work is inspired by our bicultural experiences that are rooted in DIY and rasquache (doing a lot with a little) philosophy.
The collective is made up of Kristin Gamez, Sarah Castillo, Mari Hernandez and myself Ruth Buentello.
A bit about our collective artwork:
As Mas Rudas we are constantly processing how art changes people. We chose the collective model to embrace collective perspectives rather than one. I think that combining our multiple perspectives and disciplines we have had a stronger impact. When choosing our exhibition themes we first look at the larger issues affecting our communities and create based on those needs. We see our work as representing the larger San Antonio community and being a voice for the underrepresented.
A bit more about our “Walking Altars” which we will wear and also perform during Luminaria, a contemporary arts festival in San Antonio.
There are multiple inspirations for our Walking Altars Performance. The Walking Altars performance is influenced by the East LA based art collective OSCO, who used performance, public art, and multimedia to respond to social and political turbulence in Los Angeles. In the same way, Mas Rudas will be responding to current social and political issues around immigration, women's issues, and mexican american exclusion in texas history. We collectively chose to embody the yard altar because it is a visual representation of faith and are often personal responses to crisis.Yard altars are mostly created by women and are found outside the home in south Texas to be used for prayer and meditation.There will be four walking altars, one for each member and much like yard altars each one will be dedicated to a specific social issue.
We are very honored to be invited to participate at this year's Luminaria and hope the San Antonio community will come out to see us and all the other amazing artists that will be there.