|
Synopsis | Website
2501 Migrants: A Journey on Facebook
2501 Migrants is a full-length documentary that explores questions of art, the artist, and indigenous community in the context of global migration. Daily, thousands of primarily poor and young indigenous Mexicans abandon their native homes. They start voyages to the “first world” in search of jobs and the hope of a brighter future--or, indeed, any economic future at all.
In their wake, they leave behind the hollow footprints of a cultural and domestic abandonment. 2501 Migrants illustrates this through the story of Alejandro Santiago, a middle-aged artist and family man from Oaxaca, Mexico. Relatively affluent and erudite, Alejandro returns home after a brief self-exile in France. But upon arrival to his native Teococuilco, he is struck by what he perceives as a virtual “ghost town.” Alejandro experiences, first hand, the reality that Oaxaca has emerged as one of Mexico’s leading “exporters of human labor” to the United States. Inspired by this, he decides to create a monumental installation art piece: 2,501 life-size sculptures— an homage to each individual migrant who left his village.
Migrants succeeds in posing one of the central questions of our times: Is Alejandro Santiago an example of an “artist as catalyst for social change?” Is 2,501 Migrants an original model for creating art around community building?
|
|
|
Women Who Organize Make Progress
15-minute video about the accomplishments of a group of Mixtec women who have created a mini-credit union to provide emergency funds for their community.
This video was made possible by: A grant from the Ford Foundation to the department of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
DVD | Color | English | Spanish |
|
Cruz allows her subjects to tell the story in their own words. But the perspectiveis uniquely hers, a reflection of someone with an intimate knowledge of bothsides of the border.
–Los Angeles Times
Santiago’ssculptures are larger than life, rough-hewn, scarred and sturdy like the peoplewho have left his village of Teococuilco de Marcos Perez. He dreamed up theproject as a way to repopulate the village – at least symbolically, to createchallenging jobs for those left behind and to ultimately lure back some [of]the community’s former inhabitants with improved job opportunities in hisworkshop….
=== READ MORE
|
|
|
Filmmaker Yolanda Cruz pays heed to the overlooked Mexican Indian.
--------------------
Her work seeks to depict a culture's complexity. Take '2501 Migrants,' showing at REDCAT.
By Reed Johnson
December 14 2009
Its indigenous people are an integral part of Mexican society, but you wouldn't guess it from watching Mexican movies and television, glancing at billboards or perusing the ranks of the nation's political and economic elites.
The complete article can be viewed at:
|
|
NATIVE VISIONS: TWO DOCUMENTARIES ON INDIGENOUS MEXICAN CULTURE
December 14, 2009
2501 Migrants: A Journey, by Yolanda Cruz
Day Two, by Dante Cerano
“Cruz allows her subjects to tell the story in their own words. But the perspective is uniquely hers, a reflection of someone with an intimate knowledge of both sides of the border.” Los Angeles Times
Reencuentros: 2501 Migrantes (Mexico/USA, 2008, 57 min.) examines the effects of mass emigration in the Oaxacan town of Teococuilo, virtually deserted after most of its adult indigenous population departed to look for work in the United States or Mexico City. Yolanda Cruz’s documentary tells the story of artist Alejandro Santiago, who sets out to create a monumental installation of 2501 life-size sculptures of all the people who left, because Teocucuilo, he feels, is so empty. The program also features Dante Cerano’s award-winning video essay Día dos(Mexico, 2004, 23 min.), an idiosyncratic and irreverent take on the second day of a P’urhepecha wedding ceremony.
In person: Yolanda Cruz
Curated by Jesse Lerner and Steve Anker.
Funded in part with generous support from Wendy Keys and Donald Pels.
|
|
|
