CALL FOR COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION: MEMORY & REMEMBRANCE COMMUNITY OFRENDA

September 17, 2021- November 22, 2021

419 Congress Ave. Austin, TX 78701

The Mexic-Arte Museum invites the community to participate in our upcoming Day of the Dead/Dia de Los Muertos ofrenda. By contributing a photo of a loved one or someone you admire who has passed away, you will help transform our gallery into a communal space where we can commemorate the lives of our family and friends.

GUIDELINES:Each participant will be allotted a 12” x 12” space on our gallery wall. This space will include your framed photo as well as a small plaque (provided by the Museum) where you will include your loved ones name and a personal message. We encourage participants to decorate or personalize their frames but frames should be no larger than 10” x 10” to ensure room for a plaque.

DEADLINE TO DROP OFF: September 13th, 2021, 5 pm.Framed photos can be dropped off at the Museum Front Desk during regular business hours. Blank plaques will be provided at the time of drop-off and should be completed at that time.

Museum hours are Mon-Thurs: 10am-6pmFri-Sat: 10am-5pmSun: 12pm- 5pm

For questions please contact: Savannah Diaz, Associate Registrar & Preparator

Savannahd@mexic-artemuseum.org

CONVOCATORIA PARA LA PARTICIPACIÓN COMUNITARIA:Exposición de dia de los muertos en el Museo Mexic-Arte

17 de septiembre de 2021-22 de noviembre de 2021

419 Congress Ave. Austin, TX 78701

El Museo Mexic-Arte invita a la comunidad a participar en nuestra próxima ofrenda del Día de Muertos / Día de los Muertos. Al aportar una foto de un ser querido o de alguien a quien admira que ha fallecido, ayudará a transformar nuestra galería en un espacio común donde podemos conmemorar la vida de nuestra familia y amigos.

PAUTAS:A cada participante se le asignará un espacio de 12 x 12 pulgadas en la pared de nuestra galería. Este espacio incluirá tu foto enmarcada así como una pequeña placa (proporcionada por el Museo) donde incluirán el nombre de tus seres queridos y un mensaje personal. Alentamos a los participantes a decorar o personalizar sus marcos, pero los marcos no deben medir más de 10 ”x 10” pulgadas para asegurar espacio para una placa.

FECHA LÍMITE DE ENTREGA: 6 de septiembre de 2021, 5 pm.Las fotografías enmarcadas se pueden dejar en la recepción del museo durante el horario comercial habitual.

Horas del museo Lunes a jueves: 10 a. M. A 6 p. M.Viernes a sábado: 10 a. M. A 5 p. M.Domingo: 12 pm a 5 pm

Si tiene preguntas, comuníquese con:Savannah Diaz, Registradora asociada y preparadora

Savannahd@mexic-artemuseum.org

Today we gave a tour of San Jose II to a group of community leaders including Councilmember Vanessa Fuentes and Dean Michelle Addington from the The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture. We are grateful for their support of our work.

CALL TO ACTION

(Re)claiming Memories needs you!

Help us preserve Cementerio San José! 

We are currently looking for volunteers to help with the following:

1. Cemetery Cleanup

2. Genealogical Research

Contact (Re)claiming Memories at reclaimingmemoriestx@gmail.com for more information.

Good Morning Friends,

We are officially announcing our Spring Symposium titled, “Ciclos: Rebirth, Migration and Placemaking in the Americas.” It will take place March 11-12, 2021. We are so excited to create another space for a continuation of our Fall conversation. This time, however, we would like to center on the living. Read below our statement:

With the final days of winter, the Monarch butterfly leaves its Mexican roosts during the second week of March. The Monarchs fly North and East looking for milkweed plants on which to lay their eggs. Having survived a long and arduous Southward flight in the Fall, they have managed to escape predators and other hazards along the way. These surviving Monarchs are the ones that are destined to produce a new generation.

The migrating females lay eggs on the milkweed plants they find as they fly, recolonizing the southern United States before they die. The first spring caterpillars hatch and metamorphose into orange and black adults. These newly emerged Monarchs, the offspring of the butterflies that made the Fall journey, recolonize their parents’ original homes. Over the summer there are three or four generations of Monarch butterflies, depending on the length of the growing season. Furthermore, the new generations make the trek back to Mexico in the Fall. They arrive just in time for Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. This is why Monarchs are believed to be the souls of our dearly departed coming back to the land of living to visit their loved ones. 

Inspired by this miraculous arthropod and its awe-inspiring journey, we have created the symposium, Ciclos: Rebirth, Migration and Placemaking in the Americas. The event will take place on March 11-12, 2020. It is a joint collaboration between The University of Texas at Austin’s School of Architecture and Dr. Andrea Roberts’ Texas Freedom Colonies Project based out of Texas A&M University.

The event organizers have curated a two-half day symposium that will highlight histories of agency, resilience, survival and perseverance. While the Necropolis Politic Symposium in the Fall of 2020 focused on the remembrance of the Dead, Ciclos is meant to celebrate the living—it is meant to celebrate life. Speakers for this event included Prof. Magdalena Nova from the Urban and Planning Department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. It will also feature a musical performance by Austin, Texas-based band, Cecilia and the Broken Hearts. 

Please join us for two days of thought-provoking conversation centered around powerful narratives of rebirth, migration, and placemaking across landscapes of memory and across the limits of geospatial dimensions.

 

Thank you to all that attended the symposium on October 31, 2020! For those that couldn’t make it, we are preparing a reflection and other material to give you some event highlights. You can also download our list of speakers. It contains their contact information in case there was a presenter that you were interested in reaching out to! Download it here.

Save the date! The event will take place on October 31, 2020 from 9am-6pm (CST)

Click on the following link to register for the symposium:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeSBAkJhAsn7ELNXAC2a9TPpYbHaKwSgxjFNVhY0cd_8e0sSQ/viewform?usp=pp_url

Thank you to those that joined the conversation. More events coming this Fall!

Dr. Fred McGhee, has generously provided the following template in case you are interested in voicing your support for the Montopolis community’s most current rezoning crisis.

Dear (insert name of city council member),

My name is (insert name) and I am a resident of Austin City Council district (insert district number). I am writing to ask you to vote AGAINST any single-family zoning change requests located inside the Montopolis planning area, especially the six zoning cases that were presented before the Planning Commission at its June 23rd meeting.  The Montopolis community has expressed opposition to these increases in zoning entitlements, and I believe you should support the community’s wishes.  We can do better.

Please consider the following:
1.  The ecology of Montopolis is very sensitive, in terms of both natural as well as cultural resources.  It is a community prone to flooding.  The local environment cannot accommodate the dramatic increases in impervious cover that would accompany these zoning entitlement increases. For instance the impervious cover percentage at 508 Kemp St. is currently less than two percent.  Similar open space currently exists at the other lots.2.  The Montopolis Neighborhood Plan calls for these properties to be zoned SF-3.  Montopolis already has an over-concentration of multifamily, townhouse, industrial, and commercially zoned property, and dearth of properly maintained parkland.
3.  The “Housing” issue is a non-issue. The Montopolis CDC should be in the lead in the development of housing in Montopolis, not profit-maximizing outside interests.
Most important is this:  Montopolis is a community of mostly low-income families.  It is a community that believes in family values.  They should not be pushed or priced out of their own neighborhood.