Fallen Fruit of Puerto Vallarta!
Estas Como Mango! by Fallen Fruit
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ABOUT THE PROJECT:
¡Estas Como Mango! means that “You are like a Mango” or “you are sweet, perfect and ripe!” It’s a term of affection and adoration in Mexico. Of course, we believe everyone is perfect and everyone is ripe. This exhibition of contemporary art and public practice will open at Oficina de Proyectos Culturales (OPC) in Puerto Vallarta in May 2015 and will be the first exhibition by the Fallen Fruit collective in Mexico. Cultural exchange and contemporary art making is important to the vibrancy of a 21st-century transnational community. We recognize that California was once Mexico and that Latin-American heritage is part of West-coast culture. The artists want to create meaning from the nuances of these histories. This art installation will re-contextualize local narratives using fruit and images of Puerto Vallarta as a subject, object and symbol.
The artworks will respond to people and place and use local fruit as a connector. Fruit is a part of the history of a place. In the case of Puerto Vallarta, we found that the mango is paramount to local culture. Mangos were imported to this tropical beach town and part of its foundation in terms of urban planning, infrastructure, and culture. This area was a place to harvest salt for the mines, then a plantation, a village, and now a town—where the culture of the plantation was replaced by a culture of tourism. From this context, we will create new artworks that celebrate the history of place and fruit as a connector of cultural meaning.
ABOUT OPC:
Oficina de Proyectos Culturales is an independent non-profit arts organization dedicated to fostering dialogue through exhibitions, round table discussions, public art and arts education programs. OPC works with artists, architects, curators, academics, and writers who explore ideas that shape our city and to develop cultural programming that is firmly rooted in Puerto Vallarta, yet international in scope.