The Artists and their Art

The SALPICA Project is an ambitious cultural exchange project including Latino, Afro-Latino and indigenous visual artists from the United States and Latin America.  The project is based on the premise that by bringing together artists from underrepresented groups throughout the western hemisphere, and engaging them in dialogue on the role of the visual arts in society, new understanding would emerge.  Hence the name for the project, SALPICA, the Spanish word for “spatter,” because no participant was left untouched nor could anyone predict the outcome.

In May 2009, 14 artists from Guatemala, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and five from the U.S., spent three weeks attending lectures and visiting local art and education centers in Amherst, Boston, Washington DC, New York City, New Mexico, and Los Angeles.  Together they explored art and society in the U.S., sharing understandings, perspectives and analyses of the people, communities and institutions they visited. In August 2009, the U.S. artists ventured out on a reciprocal visit to the counterpart Latin American countries.  As the concluding activity of the program in Latin America, all nineteen SALPICA artists met in Bogotá, Colombia to reflect on what they had experienced, and to share their ideas.  The SALPICA Exhibit is the culmination of this exchange.  Please download the SALPICA Exhibit Catalogue to see the art and learn more about the artists.

The Institute for Training and Development (ITD) is honored and proud to be the organizing force behind this cultural experiment.   We would especially like to thank our partners in Latin America for making SALPICA possible – Centro Las Lianas in Ecuador; Casa No'j in Guatemala; Fundación Tamauca Manoy in Colombia and Museo Nacional de Etnografia y Folklore (MUSEF) in Bolivia.  In addition we would like to acknowledge the support and funding of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. State Department that made the SALPICA Project possible.