This monthly family program features an experiential learning opportunity with storytelling, arts-based activities, and self-guided tours specially designed for young visitors. Families will have the chance to connect with and learn from MOA’s diverse collections and exhibitions. Culture Club focuses on active, participatory learning about diverse cultural perspectives and ways of knowing.

This month we invite families to learn about papel picado, a traditional Mexican craft that involves cutting colourful tissue paper into elaborate shapes and designs to hang as decorations. Work with Carmen Keitsch, a multi-talented artist originally from Mexico. Afterwards enjoy a self-guided tour of MOA’s new feature exhibition, Xicanx: Dreamers + Changemakers / Soñadores + creadores del cambio.

Limited supplies; first come, first serve.

Bio

Carmen Keitsch was born in the small town of Navolato, Sinaloa, Mexico, where she discovered her passion for the arts and classical music early in life. Thus, inspired her to study theater, pottery, music and painting. Carmen moved to Canada in 1989 where she began to explore Pre-Hispanic folk art combining symbolism, poetry and color. History and culture of the native Aztec and Maya people of North America are strongly reflected in her art. Her paintings also display a profound spiritual meaning of her life journey and those around her.

Culture Club at MOA is made possible by the generous support of UBC Campus & Community Planning.

Deepen your exhibition experience of Xicanx: Dreamers + Changemakers/soñadores + creadores del cambio, in these special tours that  focus on sharing perspectives about Xicanx history, social and political issues and identity.

Xicanx (May 12, 2022 – January 1, 2023) features many contemporary works by over thirty artists of Mexican American heritage–self-identified as Xicanx. These works combine traditions with contemporary experiences and realities to create powerful critiques that help build our understanding of the issues of race, migration, and identity that impact the Xicanx community.

These 30-minute exhibition tours will give visitors the opportunity to engage with the themes and ideas of the exhibition, including complex identities, activism and the concept of borders.

Capacity of 15 people per tour; first come, first served.

Schedule:
Third Thursday of each month | 7 pm

Thursday, May 19: with Raul Gatica, co-founder of Dignidad Migrante Society (please note: this month’s tour is at 3 pm, not 7 pm)

Thursday, June 16: with Diamond Olivia Olsson Delgado, musician, poet, storyteller and actor + Angelic Goldsky, creative director and founder of the Transgender Expressions Haven

Thursday, July 21

Thursday, August 18

Thursday, September 15

Thursday, October 20: with Alessandra Santos, chair of Latin American Studies Program, and faculty associate of Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, UBC

Thursday, November 17

Bios

Raul Gatica is the co-founder of Dignidad Migrante Society, a temporary foreign farm worker organization, as well as editor of the cultural magazine El Cencerro. He describes himself as a Mixtec of bad reputation, subversive with a patched heart, and (sometimes) poet from San Miguelito, Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca, Mexico. He is a survivor of torture and has been in political exile in Canada since 2005. He has authored books of poetry Assaulting the Word and Broken Man/Hombre Roto, as well as books of stories Shoes on the Rocks and Borrowed Characters.

Diamond Olivia Olsson Delgado is a musician, poet, storyteller and actor. She/her is Mexican First Nations and Caucasian. Dabbing in raw forms of art exploring queer identity, racism and healing. Collecting inspiration from everyday life. She is nothing but honest.

Angelic Goldsky [t(he?)y] is a poet and a queer community arts lover. They are the poet-in-residence at the Roundhouse Community Art Centre, and love facilitating and finding ancient words which rebel against form, and birth new timelines. They are the Creative Director and Founder of the Transgender Expressions Haven, an organization devoted to celebrating transgender creative genius through interactive, media and multi-dimensional art.

Alessandra Santos is associate professor in the Department of Theatre and Film, and currently serves as chair of Latin American Studies at UBC. Her research area is Latin American cinema, performance, literature and culture. Her main areas of interest are utopias, technology, gender, and social justice, and her work examines how art functions as social practice. Among her publications are a book on Mexican cult film The Holy Mountain, and two co-edited interdisciplinary volumes on utopias in the Americas.