Celebrate Hispanic/LatinxHeritage month with with a visit to Museo Eduardo Carrillo’s Califas Legacy Project on Google Arts & Culture.

Get to know the work of Amalia Mesa-Bains, Ralph D’Oliveira, Carmen Leon, and Yermo Aranda. You will also discover Califas: The Ancestral Journey/ El Viaje Ancestral, a moveable mural book produced by Felicia Rice, Moving Parts Press, in collaboration with Museo Eduardo Carrillo.

View Exhibit Now

(Scroll down the Latino Art Now page until you see Museo Eduardo Carrillo.)

Or click below to go directly to our new Califas Legacy Project exhibits on Google Arts & Culture:

The Califas Legacy Project has unified the Monterey Bay Crescent through public retrospective and multi-generational exhibitions, zoomed in opportunities, streetside art viewing, portable murals, documentary videos, panel discussions, and a Latinx-based symposium.

SEE FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

The Califas Legacy Project grew out of the recognition that our region represents an opportunity to fill in a missing piece of American art history. The story of Chicano/a art on the Central Coast is decades long, rich and varied.  

In 1982, Professor Eduardo Carrillo conceived of the “Califas: Chicano Art and Culture in California” conference to bring together artists, scholars, and creative social instigators to take stock of La Raza y El Movimiendo after several decades of political awakening and action. Together with Philip Brookman, Tomas Ybarra Frausto, and Juventino Esparza, he assembled a remarkable group for a multi-day symposium. They argued and agreed that the Chicano movement in all its variety and manifestations was very much alive and needed continued nurturance. 

Now, almost forty years later, the Califas Legacy Project features the art and ideas of our region’s Chicano/a/x and Latinx creative leaders, our elders in the movement and the next generation artists across the Monterey Bay Crescent.

The nine organizations participating in the Califas Legacy Project
Museo Eduardo Carrillo
Monterey Museum of Art
Moving Parts Press
Santa Cruz Art League
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Watsonville Public Library
UCSC Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery
UCSC Institute of Arts and Sciences
UCSC Library Special Collections & Archives

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Museo Eduardo Carrillo 
TITLE: The Califas Legacy Project 
(online retrospective of Califas Legacy artists with video vignettes and the book, Califas The Ancestral Journey/ El Viaje Ancestral)
DATES: March 5, 2021 ongoing
ADDRESS: museoeduardocarrillo.org and Google Arts & Culture
CONTACT: Betsy Andersen spark@cruzio.com

Carmen León Exhibit at Google Arts & Culture

Monterey Museum of Art
TITLE: The Califas Legacy Project: The Ancestral Journey/El Viaje Ancestral 
Virtual exhibit of CALIFAS artists, partners, and the book, along with other Moving Parts Press books)
DATES: January 8 – April 11, 2021
ADDRESS: 559 Pacific St, Monterey, CA 93949
CONTACT: Allyson Hitte ahitte@montereyart.org
Programming TBA

Monterey Museum of Art
TITLE: Change = Action/Time: Generational Activism in Chicanx and Latinx Art
(Zoom symposium)
DATES: January 9 (10:00-5:00)
CONTACT: Allyson Hitte ahitte@montereyart.org
ADDRESS: https://montereyart.org/event/symposium/

Santa Cruz Art League
TITLE: The Califas Legacy Project
(Online retrospective of Califas Legacy artists with video vignettes and the book, Califas The Ancestral Journey/ El Viaje Ancestral) with Museo Eduardo Carrillo
DATES: March 5 – May 31, 2021
ZOOM RECEPTION: March 5, 2021 (5:30-6:30)
ADDRESS: 526 Broadway Ave, Santa Cruz, CA 95060
CONTACT: Valeria Miranda valeria@scal.org
Online exhibition: Click here to view
View recorded panel discussion with the Artists/Charla con los Artistas

Santa Cruz Public Libraries
TITLE: Califas: The Ancestral Journey/El Viaje Ancestral 
(Series of banners displayed in street facing windows with the book displayed inside)
DATES: January 8, 2021 ongoing
ADDRESS: 224 Church St, Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Contact: Diane Cowen cowend@santacruzpl.org and Susan Nilsson nilssons@santacruzpl.org
Programming TBA

Watsonville Public Library
TITLE: Califas: The Ancestral Journey/El Viaje Ancestral 
(Series of banners displayed in outward facing windows in the City Hall rotunda with the book displayed inside)
DATES: January 8, 2021 ongoing
ADDRESS: 275 Main St, Watsonville, CA 95076
CONTACT: Alicia Martinez alicia.martinez@cityofwatsonville.org
Programming TBA

Mary Porter Sesnon Gallery, UCSC
TITLE: Eduardo Carrillo: Comunidad de Califas
(Virtual exhibition of Eduardo Carrillo monographic retrospective)
DATES: February 3 – April 3, 2021
ZOOM RECEPTION: February 3, 2020 @ 4:00-5:00pm
(Tour of the virtual exhibition hub, website, and a panel discussion) Register here
ADDRESS: https://art.ucsc.edu/sesnon/eduardo-carrillo
CONTACT: Shelby Graham sgraham@ucsc.edu and Louise Leong lleong1@ucsc.edu
Programming: Sesnon website

Institute of the Arts and Sciences and UCSC University Library with Moving Parts Press
TITLE: Rising From the Ashes: The Artistry and Perseverance of Moving Parts Press
(panel moderated by Rachel Nelson, Director, Institute of the Arts and Sciences, UCSC, sponsored by UCSC Special Collections and IAS, featuring Felicia Rice)
DATES: January 28, 2020 (5:00-6:30pm)
ADDRESS: https://ucsc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pvl55rODS0CJcG-15MRQsw
CONTACT: Teresa Mora tmora1@ucsc.edu and Felicia Rice frice@movingpartspress.com

Brief description of the event: 
In June 2020, book artist Felicia Rice completed her most recent piece, The Necropolitics of Extraction. Two months later the book, along with Rice’s studio, was destroyed by the wildfires that ravaged the Santa Cruz Mountains. The only extant copies of the work are those that had already found homes in various institutions across the country. Despite this massive loss Rice’s work continues as Moving Parts Press works to rise through the ashes.
 
Rice’s work has always hinged on collaboration and community in order to explore and comment on some of the most tangled issues of our time, from questions surrounding identity to the sustainability of our planet. This event invites a number of her closest collaborators, including UCSC Arts Faculty, T.J. Demos and Jennifer González to join Rice in conversation about her work, the process of collaboration and the impact of the medium of artists’ books. 

We thank the generous sponsors of the Califas Legacy Project

The Califas Legacy Project is a multi-year, multi-medium, collaborative endeavor launched by Museo Eduardo Carrillo to document the legacy of five Central Coast Chicano/a cultural treasures: Guillermo (Yermo) Aranda, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Eduardo Carrillo, Ralph D’Oliveira, and Carmen León. Nine organizations are contributing to a series of events and exhibitions taking place between January and April 2021 (full schedule here).
 

The development of  Califas The Ancestral Journey/ El Viaje Ancestral  accordion book, December 2019.

Califas: The Ancestral Journey/El Viaje Ancestral
A collaboration with Moving Parts Press

In recognition of this need to focus on the Latinx artists of the Central Coast Califas: The Ancestral Journey/El Viaje Ancestral is being produced jointly by Museo and Moving Parts Press as an integral part of the Califas Legacy Project. In order to capture the public mural and installation forms in which these artists work, the artists created a one-of-a-kind collaborative “mural,” hand painted in an accordion-fold book with an assemblage shadow box on the cover. The book was designed and letterpress printed by Felicia Rice of Moving Parts Press and co-published with Museo Eduardo Carrillo. A commercially printed trade edition of the book is being given to libraries, schools, and other youth-serving organizations in the Central Coast region. Learn more about the book on the Moving Parts press website here.

The Monterey Museum of Art has the book on display in their virtual exhibit devoted to the work of Chicanx and Latinx artists of the Monterey Bay Crescent here.

The MMA is also showing more books and broadsides from the Moving Parts Press Chicanx/Latinx Series in their virtual exhibit here.

The Santa Cruz and Watsonville public libraries have developed a suite of banners to launch of the book this winter. Find all of these events here.

We recognize the need to bring visibility to the vacant places in our culture’s art history through sharing the work of our region’s leading Chicano/a/x artists. Books need to be in people’s hands and the art needs to be part of people’s social consciousness.

Califas Legacy Project Documentary

Integral to the Califas Legacy Project is a documentary film by Wallace Boss. He records the artists in their own words and films them in their studio settings. It will complement and enhance the programming this coming summer and fall.

Collaboration with Young Writers’ Program

The sixth book in Hablamos Juntos series will come out this Spring. It will feature the Califas Legacy artists. The annual reading at Bookshop Santa Cruz offered by our long-time collaborator, the Young Writers Program, will feature some of the young authors reading their narratives inspired by the artists’ images. Join us.

Traveling exhibition

Support

Thanks to the Arts Council of Santa Cruz County, Santa Cruz City Arts, and hit & run press for their support for this project.

Share your thoughts

Would you like to know more? Please contact us with your questions and thoughts, or post a comment below. We welcome your input.