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Announcer: This is a Getty
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Podcast.
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[Quick steps down a street]
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Jaime Roque: Early Saturday
morning in Boyle Heights.
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A couple storefront
gates are still down, the
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street not quite awake.
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And then—one building
already sounds like it’s
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been open for hours.
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Diego Torres-Casso:
[Through door speaker]
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Go ahead and try opening.
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Roque: Laughter, chairs
sliding, all that noise means
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people are making things.
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That building is home
to Las Fotos Project.
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Torres-Casso: Las Fotos is
kind of this resource space.
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A place where young folks
are exploring creativity,
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exploring identity…kind of
this hub for all of that.
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Roque: That’s Diego, the
photography education
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manager at Las Fotos.
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Las Fotos Project began
in 2010 to offer a safe
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space where teen girls use
photography to speak their
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stories and explore identity.
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Students come largely
from South, Central, and
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East LA—no gear or prior
experience required.
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And the classes serve
teen girls ages 13 to 18.
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But, when students turn 18,
they age out and Diego starts
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hearing the same plea: “Can we
keep going”? That’s the need.
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Hello my name is Jaime
and welcome to ReCurrent.
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[knocks on door]
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Hey Christian!
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Christian Morales: Oh,
hey Jaime, how’s it going?
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My name is Christian Morales.
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I’m the community
engagement coordinator
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for the Getty Museum.
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I try to bridge the gap
between the museum and
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communities all across LA.
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Roque: Christian had Las
Fotos Project on his mind.
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He drafted a quick email to
Diego and Arlene—no pitch deck.
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Just this: what if we bring
young women, already making
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work about identity, into
a show doing the same?
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The show was Behold, the Maria
Magdalena Campos-Pons exhibition
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at the Getty: 35 years of her
work on migration, memory,
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and identity, told through
photographs, installation,
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video, and performance.
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Morales: I quickly
emailed Diego and Arlene.
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They were very receptive…they
were totally open for it.
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Roque: And why Las Fotos?
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Morales: I see myself
in these students.
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I want them to feel comfortable.
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I want them to feel like the
Getty is a place for them.
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Roque: That’s the “why”. Someone
inside the institution sees a
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potential bridge for Getty and
the community—and they decided
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to reach out. Campos-Pons’
work offered that perfect
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opening for a new connection.
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Morales: The exhibition,
it’s not just photographs.
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It’s three-dimensional
sculpture works, it’s works
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on paper, a video component.
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She talks a lot about not
only immigration but her
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identity as an Afro-Cuban
Latin American person.
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We knew that with Magda's
connection, not only to
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photography, but also to
her identity being a woman
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of color in the arts, we
wanted to partner with an
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organization that had a
very similar type of focus.
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And I think the age range
was also nice because they’re
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young adults coming into
their own careers, into their
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sort of post high school age.
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It's a time of discovery
where I think the Campos-Pons
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exhibition is a great exhibition
for that because she speaks to
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a lot of those sort of themes.
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[Guitar music plays]
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Yeah,
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so Maria Campos-Pons
was born in 1959.
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She’s the descendant of
enslaved and indentured people.
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They were brought to work on
Cuban sugar plantations, so
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she left Cuba in the 1990s
for the US and couldn’t return
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home for more than a decade.
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In Behold, Maria Magdalena
Campos-Pons brings her and her
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family stories into the gallery.
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And she uses it as a
lens to look outward.
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So the long shadows of
slavery and contract labor,
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the daily work of motherhood,
the paths of migration,
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and the spiritual practices
that keep a lineage intact.
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[Bass guitar riff]
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Roque: In
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one room, ironing boards
circle like an altar while
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images of women from different
generations appear in light.
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In another work, a Black woman’s
braids rise upward, threaded
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with red and white beads, as she
steadies a stalk of sugarcane
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against a red background.
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It isn’t a style so much as
a method: idea first; then
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the form that can carry it.
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[Crowd chatter]
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Arlene Mejorado: What we did was
we created something we like to
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call the “Independent Study with
María Magdalena Campos-Pons”.
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Roque: Meet Arlene
Mejorado, a lens-based
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artist in Los Angeles.
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She’s been teaching at Las
Fotos since 2017 and is
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the teaching artist for
this independent study.
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Mejorado: So what was really
great was we kicked off the
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class actually with meeting with
the curator and doing a nice
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walkthrough of María Magdalena
Campos-Pons show at the Getty.
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Roque: That first visit
was time to get immersed
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in all things Campos-Pons.
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The students learned how
she builds meaning and
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how she transmits her life
experiences into her art.
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Mejorado: So, although Las
Fotos Project literally is in
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the name, it’s a photography
space, we wanted students
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to kinda become—to think, to
prioritize what they wanna
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say, and then think about
the medium or the way they
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are going to say it after.
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And that’s in the spirit of
Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons
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because she talks about how in
her work she’s not so concerned
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about, you know, ‘I’m a
photographer,’ ‘I’m a painter,’
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or ‘I’m an installation artist.’
She’s concerned with having
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something that she wants to
express and then using the
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tools that are both at her reach
or best to tell that message.
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[Melodic music begins]
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Roque: Permission to think
of what you want to say
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and then pick how you want
to say it is exciting and
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scary at the same time.
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It’s exciting because you have
an open canvas, literally and
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figuratively, but also scary
because of that same fact.
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It can be hard to lay down
what you want to say in an
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open and honest way, when
you’re afraid your message—and
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your art—will be judged.
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To see what that looks like
in practice, meet Wendy.
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She’s 21, four years with
Las Fotos, and she’s aged
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out of the teen classes.
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Then, the 18 plus Getty
independent study opened up.
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She applied and she got in.
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We met on a Zoom call
for this conversation.
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Wendy Cubillo: Yeah, so when
I walked into the exhibit,
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I think the very first thing
that came to mind was just how
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incredibly talented she was,
but also the similarities that
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I saw within myself in her work.
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So I saw that she played a lot
with colors, she played with
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a lot with all these different
textures and these different
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materials in her photographs.
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I like to play around
with different things like
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that to invoke different
types of symbolism.
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[Piano
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music begins]
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Roque: And that was the first
of several visits at the Getty.
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One of those visits
was extra special—the
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artist herself was there.
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Mejorado: You know when
Campos-Pons met with the
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class, she just started
speaking to the class in
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Spanish, unbothered about it.
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And so that was something
that was really different
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and I felt like there was
a bit of a radical sense to
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it, and then all of the class
is mostly first generation,
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children of immigrants.
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Roque: Christian was
also in the room.
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Morales: It got pretty intense
and emotional in the room, the
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fact that they were speaking
the same mother language.
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And I think for a lot of
them, they saw themselves
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in her and it was maybe one
of the first times where
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an artist exhibiting at the
Getty Museum also has very
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similar backgrounds to them.
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Cubillo: Meeting her was
absolutely beautiful.
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She was so calm and she was
talking to us in Spanish
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too, which was awesome.
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I came home—my mom’s usually
home—I came home and I
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was like, Ma, this was so
cool, you know, [laughs]
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meeting her was amazing.
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I mentioned to her
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that she was speaking
in Spanish to us.
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I think that it was very
powerful that she decided
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that the entirety of that
meeting was going to be
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in Spanish, acknowledging
our heritage, you know.
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And I think that was a
really beautiful thing.
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It was this really cool dialogue
of her expressing more about
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her art and then also of when
she was our age and there
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was a lot of transparency.
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We're all here as artists;
she was very supportive.
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[Guitar music plays]
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Roque: Wendy and the
group carry that energy
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home to Boyle Heights.
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Here is Arlene, their
teaching artist at Las Fotos.
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Mejorado: And so all of
the students got to work a
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little bit outside of just
traditional digital photography
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and we really encouraged
them to try something that
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they haven’t done before.
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A lot of students have turned
to family looking at the
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archives, looking at family
photos, family archives.
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We’ve had students that have
actually done portrait sessions
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with their family members
here in the studio at LFP.
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One student, she’s been more
interested in looking at people
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in her community, but not
necessarily family, so thinking
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more about kinship in that way.
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Roque: Those messages, they
all converge around the
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themes found in Behold.
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Mejorado: But I will say
that a lot of students
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have chosen to think about
the ideas around home, the
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ideas around geographical
placement and displacement.
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The ideas around lineage
and intergenerational
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experiences and traumas, even.
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And also thinking about memory
and connection to land, and
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so these are all ideas that,
seeing Campos-Pons, look at
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these ideas through her work has
helped students kind of think
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about their own experiences
and understand them better.
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[Electronic music begins]
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Roque: Those museum hours—and
that Spanish conversation—start
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to shape their decisions.
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For Wendy, the main question
is: what’s the right vessel
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for what I’m trying to say?
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So she gets to work:
recording every part of
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her creative process.
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Cubillo: [into a voice recorder]
“Hi, my name is Wendy and I’m
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making this voice memo series
documenting the process of….
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[fades out]
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Roque: That’s Wendy—in
the middle of the making,
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and a little stuck on what
the next move should be.
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Cubillo: [fades back in] …and
it deals with memories, it
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deals with our inner child
nostalgia… and I'm just, yeah
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I’m finding a lot of pictures
that honestly I hadn’t seen in
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years, and to me it’s crazy.
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Roque: [over Wendy speaking]
Wendy starts with a feeling,
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not a format—and that’s
where she gets stuck.
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Cubillo: [over Zoom] At
first I knew the meaning
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behind it, but I didn’t
know what medium to use.
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At first I was gonna create
some sort of magazine with
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photos and then I was like,
I kinda want to work with
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something that’s more immersive,
not so much like a book.”
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Roque: She even tries to
imagine a vanity—you sit,
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look in the mirror, and let
the piece talk back—but the
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right setup never shows up.
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That’s when a memory from one
of those visits to Getty and
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Behold snaps into focus—the room
that did the talking for itself.
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Cubillo: But I did get a lot
of inspiration from the part of
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the exhibit that had the video
piece and the ironing boards.
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I thought that was really cool
how she had the video playing on
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the ironing table and I thought
that was really inspiring
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because it was very immersive.
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So like you walked into this
whole different world really,
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and it was dark and like
everything was just like—you
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got to take in the feel of it.
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So that definitely inspired
my own piece for this class.
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Roque: Now that she knows
the medium fits the message,
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it’s about building the thing
she’s been seeing in her head.
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Cubillo: So the tent itself
is a children’s tent.
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It’s pink, so it’s a
very soft pink color,
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princess drapes on it.
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And as you walk in, it’s…you
would technically have to
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crawl inside, which is kind of
purposeful because I wanted to
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evoke that childhood feeling.
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So I feel like when we
are children you know, we
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are crawling around not
really afraid to really
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get messy, you know.
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Roque: The aim is to show
the work and let you step
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into the feeling it carries.
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If that feeling sounds
familiar, it’s because she’s
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chasing the same immersion
from Behold—but making it hers.
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[Orchestral music begins]
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Cubillo: The inspiration behind
the tent was kind of that
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same feeling of being immersed
into a whole different world.
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So what I was hoping with
that was that people could
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essentially go inside of the
tent and look up, and as they
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were looking up, they would
see these photographs and
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just not only see, I guess, my
story of growing up but also
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think of their own stories.
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Roque: Her artwork is ready, and
the next step is a presentation
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at Altura LA, a gallery in
Lincoln Heights, where Wendy
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and her La Fotos cohort,
who began as guests inside
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María Magdalena Campos-Pons’
Behold at the Getty, are now
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hosting their exhibition.
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[Crowd chatter]
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Cubillo: Everyone’s project
was so different, but also
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blended so well together.
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It was this feeling of just,
like, accomplishment, where
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you’re just like, oh, wow.
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Like we worked on this
for months, and then we
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finally got to see it in a
gallery, in a gallery space.
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Roque: The support is real—and
so is the vulnerability.
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But then what Wendy
hoped for happened.
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Strangers leaned in, and some
even interacted with her work.
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Cubillo: Having projects
like this almost feels
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like you’re naked almost.
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'cause it’s like you're putting
yourself out there and you’re
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just like, okay, now everyone
can see what I’m feeling now.
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That’s kind of scary.
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But at the same time, it's
like a—it's a cool feeling
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'cause you're kind of just
like I did this, I did it.
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Roque: Wendy and the other
Las Fotos students had put
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their deeply personal projects
on display and survived.
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Wendy: There was a moment in
which the girls and I, we went
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up on this little like—'cause
they have a little balcony
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up there and we were saying
thank you to everyone who was
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there and, kind of nervous, but
here we go, we're gonna do it.
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[laughs] Everyone was happy,
you know, they were clapping.
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[Orchestral
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music begins]
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Roque: We started on César
Chávez Ave. in Boyle Heights
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and then went across the
city and up the hill to
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the Getty, into Behold, and
watched a great artist, María
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Magdalena Campos-Pons, model
a way of working: meaning
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first, then the vessel.
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And the students didn’t
come to copy her style.
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They came to hear their
own voices louder.
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Identity, lineage, migration,
memory—said in whatever form
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can hold these big ideas.
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And then something important
happened: the museum
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exhibition didn’t just stay
in a building on a hill.
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Las Fotos came up the hill
and then took it off the hill.
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Yes, Behold was an
exhibition; yes, it’s
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archived online with photos
and a page on Getty’s site.
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But the real meaning is
the show lives on in the
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members of Las Fotos.
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The inspiration from this
experience goes with Wendy and
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the cohort into whatever art
they make next and into who
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they are—the way they carry
themselves, express themselves,
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and identify themselves.
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I’ll give Wendy the last
word on the power of María
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Magdalena Campos-Pons.
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Cubillo: I think her work
had a lot of emphasis on
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emotion, but also being
very unapologetic about it.
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So just being like, all right, I
feel this way and this is what I
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feel, you know, and just putting
it out there and not being
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afraid to be seen or heard.
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Seeing someone be vulnerable in
a sense, you know, and put that
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vulnerability up on the museum
walls, that is very powerful.
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There’s nobody else that can,
you know, do what you do or live
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the life that you’re living.
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I think instead of focusing
on what other people are
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doing, it’s just like,
be true to yourself.
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[Theme music begins]
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Roque: Thank you for joining me
on this episode of ReCurrent.
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00:17:35,900 --> 00:17:38,309
ReCurrent was written
and produced by me,
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Jaime, with creative
support from Zoe Goldman.
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00:17:42,510 --> 00:17:46,260
Our executive producer is
Christopher Sprinkle, and
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for transcripts, images, and
additional resources for this
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00:17:49,190 --> 00:17:54,170
episode, visit getty dot edu
slash podcast slash recurrent.
00:00:01,230 --> 00:00:02,600
Announcer: This is a Getty
2
00:00:12,309 --> 00:00:13,689
Podcast.
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00:00:13,689 --> 00:00:13,706
[Quick steps down a street]
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00:00:13,706 --> 00:00:14,709
Jaime Roque: Early Saturday
morning in Boyle Heights.
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00:00:15,219 --> 00:00:17,779
A couple storefront
gates are still down, the
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00:00:17,779 --> 00:00:19,550
street not quite awake.
7
00:00:20,170 --> 00:00:23,110
And then—one building
already sounds like it’s
8
00:00:23,110 --> 00:00:24,330
been open for hours.
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00:00:25,940 --> 00:00:26,900
Diego Torres-Casso:
[Through door speaker]
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00:00:27,680 --> 00:00:28,590
Go ahead and try opening.
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00:00:28,590 --> 00:00:30,300
Roque: Laughter, chairs
sliding, all that noise means
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00:00:30,360 --> 00:00:31,569
people are making things.
13
00:00:32,090 --> 00:00:34,639
That building is home
to Las Fotos Project.
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00:00:35,369 --> 00:00:37,540
Torres-Casso: Las Fotos is
kind of this resource space.
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00:00:37,580 --> 00:00:41,250
A place where young folks
are exploring creativity,
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00:00:41,250 --> 00:00:45,350
exploring identity…kind of
this hub for all of that.
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00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:47,900
Roque: That’s Diego, the
photography education
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00:00:47,910 --> 00:00:48,910
manager at Las Fotos.
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00:00:49,710 --> 00:00:53,210
Las Fotos Project began
in 2010 to offer a safe
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00:00:53,210 --> 00:00:56,280
space where teen girls use
photography to speak their
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00:00:56,280 --> 00:00:58,210
stories and explore identity.
22
00:00:58,610 --> 00:01:01,420
Students come largely
from South, Central, and
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00:01:01,440 --> 00:01:05,269
East LA—no gear or prior
experience required.
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00:01:06,259 --> 00:01:09,200
And the classes serve
teen girls ages 13 to 18.
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But, when students turn 18,
they age out and Diego starts
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hearing the same plea: “Can we
keep going”? That’s the need.
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00:01:22,360 --> 00:01:25,339
Hello my name is Jaime
and welcome to ReCurrent.
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[knocks on door]
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Hey Christian!
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00:01:35,879 --> 00:01:37,060
Christian Morales: Oh,
hey Jaime, how’s it going?
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My name is Christian Morales.
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I’m the community
engagement coordinator
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for the Getty Museum.
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I try to bridge the gap
between the museum and
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communities all across LA.
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00:01:51,430 --> 00:01:53,490
Roque: Christian had Las
Fotos Project on his mind.
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00:01:53,940 --> 00:01:57,420
He drafted a quick email to
Diego and Arlene—no pitch deck.
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00:01:57,950 --> 00:02:01,640
Just this: what if we bring
young women, already making
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work about identity, into
a show doing the same?
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00:02:07,320 --> 00:02:12,130
The show was Behold, the Maria
Magdalena Campos-Pons exhibition
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00:02:12,130 --> 00:02:16,010
at the Getty: 35 years of her
work on migration, memory,
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00:02:16,010 --> 00:02:19,730
and identity, told through
photographs, installation,
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00:02:19,740 --> 00:02:21,090
video, and performance.
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00:02:21,580 --> 00:02:23,329
Morales: I quickly
emailed Diego and Arlene.
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00:02:24,010 --> 00:02:27,510
They were very receptive…they
were totally open for it.
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Roque: And why Las Fotos?
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Morales: I see myself
in these students.
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I want them to feel comfortable.
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00:02:35,010 --> 00:02:38,500
I want them to feel like the
Getty is a place for them.
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Roque: That’s the “why”. Someone
inside the institution sees a
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potential bridge for Getty and
the community—and they decided
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to reach out. Campos-Pons’
work offered that perfect
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opening for a new connection.
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Morales: The exhibition,
it’s not just photographs.
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00:02:54,020 --> 00:02:57,615
It’s three-dimensional
sculpture works, it’s works
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on paper, a video component.
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She talks a lot about not
only immigration but her
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00:03:03,830 --> 00:03:07,400
identity as an Afro-Cuban
Latin American person.
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00:03:07,800 --> 00:03:10,230
We knew that with Magda's
connection, not only to
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00:03:10,230 --> 00:03:14,780
photography, but also to
her identity being a woman
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of color in the arts, we
wanted to partner with an
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organization that had a
very similar type of focus.
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And I think the age range
was also nice because they’re
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young adults coming into
their own careers, into their
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sort of post high school age.
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It's a time of discovery
where I think the Campos-Pons
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exhibition is a great exhibition
for that because she speaks to
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a lot of those sort of themes.
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[Guitar music plays]
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Yeah,
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so Maria Campos-Pons
was born in 1959.
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She’s the descendant of
enslaved and indentured people.
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They were brought to work on
Cuban sugar plantations, so
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00:04:00,990 --> 00:04:05,420
she left Cuba in the 1990s
for the US and couldn’t return
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00:04:05,429 --> 00:04:06,839
home for more than a decade.
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In Behold, Maria Magdalena
Campos-Pons brings her and her
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family stories into the gallery.
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And she uses it as a
lens to look outward.
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So the long shadows of
slavery and contract labor,
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00:04:20,470 --> 00:04:23,759
the daily work of motherhood,
the paths of migration,
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00:04:23,900 --> 00:04:26,700
and the spiritual practices
that keep a lineage intact.
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[Bass guitar riff]
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Roque: In
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one room, ironing boards
circle like an altar while
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images of women from different
generations appear in light.
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In another work, a Black woman’s
braids rise upward, threaded
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with red and white beads, as she
steadies a stalk of sugarcane
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against a red background.
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It isn’t a style so much as
a method: idea first; then
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00:04:50,400 --> 00:04:51,830
the form that can carry it.
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[Crowd chatter]
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Arlene Mejorado: What we did was
we created something we like to
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00:05:01,434 --> 00:05:05,059
call the “Independent Study with
María Magdalena Campos-Pons”.
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Roque: Meet Arlene
Mejorado, a lens-based
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00:05:07,770 --> 00:05:08,989
artist in Los Angeles.
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She’s been teaching at Las
Fotos since 2017 and is
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00:05:12,350 --> 00:05:14,670
the teaching artist for
this independent study.
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Mejorado: So what was really
great was we kicked off the
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class actually with meeting with
the curator and doing a nice
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walkthrough of María Magdalena
Campos-Pons show at the Getty.
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Roque: That first visit
was time to get immersed
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in all things Campos-Pons.
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The students learned how
she builds meaning and
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how she transmits her life
experiences into her art.
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Mejorado: So, although Las
Fotos Project literally is in
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00:05:43,720 --> 00:05:46,770
the name, it’s a photography
space, we wanted students
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00:05:46,770 --> 00:05:51,360
to kinda become—to think, to
prioritize what they wanna
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say, and then think about
the medium or the way they
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are going to say it after.
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And that’s in the spirit of
Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons
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because she talks about how in
her work she’s not so concerned
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about, you know, ‘I’m a
photographer,’ ‘I’m a painter,’
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or ‘I’m an installation artist.’
She’s concerned with having
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something that she wants to
express and then using the
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tools that are both at her reach
or best to tell that message.
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[Melodic music begins]
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Roque: Permission to think
of what you want to say
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and then pick how you want
to say it is exciting and
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scary at the same time.
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It’s exciting because you have
an open canvas, literally and
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figuratively, but also scary
because of that same fact.
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It can be hard to lay down
what you want to say in an
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open and honest way, when
you’re afraid your message—and
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your art—will be judged.
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To see what that looks like
in practice, meet Wendy.
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She’s 21, four years with
Las Fotos, and she’s aged
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out of the teen classes.
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Then, the 18 plus Getty
independent study opened up.
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She applied and she got in.
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We met on a Zoom call
for this conversation.
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Wendy Cubillo: Yeah, so when
I walked into the exhibit,
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I think the very first thing
that came to mind was just how
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incredibly talented she was,
but also the similarities that
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I saw within myself in her work.
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So I saw that she played a lot
with colors, she played with
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a lot with all these different
textures and these different
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materials in her photographs.
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I like to play around
with different things like
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that to invoke different
types of symbolism.
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[Piano
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music begins]
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Roque: And that was the first
of several visits at the Getty.
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One of those visits
was extra special—the
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artist herself was there.
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Mejorado: You know when
Campos-Pons met with the
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class, she just started
speaking to the class in
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Spanish, unbothered about it.
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And so that was something
that was really different
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and I felt like there was
a bit of a radical sense to
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it, and then all of the class
is mostly first generation,
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children of immigrants.
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Roque: Christian was
also in the room.
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Morales: It got pretty intense
and emotional in the room, the
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fact that they were speaking
the same mother language.
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And I think for a lot of
them, they saw themselves
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in her and it was maybe one
of the first times where
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an artist exhibiting at the
Getty Museum also has very
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similar backgrounds to them.
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Cubillo: Meeting her was
absolutely beautiful.
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She was so calm and she was
talking to us in Spanish
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too, which was awesome.
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I came home—my mom’s usually
home—I came home and I
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was like, Ma, this was so
cool, you know, [laughs]
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meeting her was amazing.
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I mentioned to her
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that she was speaking
in Spanish to us.
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I think that it was very
powerful that she decided
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that the entirety of that
meeting was going to be
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in Spanish, acknowledging
our heritage, you know.
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And I think that was a
really beautiful thing.
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It was this really cool dialogue
of her expressing more about
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her art and then also of when
she was our age and there
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was a lot of transparency.
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We're all here as artists;
she was very supportive.
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[Guitar music plays]
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Roque: Wendy and the
group carry that energy
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home to Boyle Heights.
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Here is Arlene, their
teaching artist at Las Fotos.
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Mejorado: And so all of
the students got to work a
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little bit outside of just
traditional digital photography
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and we really encouraged
them to try something that
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they haven’t done before.
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A lot of students have turned
to family looking at the
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archives, looking at family
photos, family archives.
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We’ve had students that have
actually done portrait sessions
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with their family members
here in the studio at LFP.
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One student, she’s been more
interested in looking at people
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in her community, but not
necessarily family, so thinking
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more about kinship in that way.
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Roque: Those messages, they
all converge around the
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themes found in Behold.
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Mejorado: But I will say
that a lot of students
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have chosen to think about
the ideas around home, the
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ideas around geographical
placement and displacement.
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The ideas around lineage
and intergenerational
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experiences and traumas, even.
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And also thinking about memory
and connection to land, and
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so these are all ideas that,
seeing Campos-Pons, look at
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these ideas through her work has
helped students kind of think
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about their own experiences
and understand them better.
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[Electronic music begins]
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Roque: Those museum hours—and
that Spanish conversation—start
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to shape their decisions.
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For Wendy, the main question
is: what’s the right vessel
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for what I’m trying to say?
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So she gets to work:
recording every part of
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her creative process.
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Cubillo: [into a voice recorder]
“Hi, my name is Wendy and I’m
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making this voice memo series
documenting the process of….
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[fades out]
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Roque: That’s Wendy—in
the middle of the making,
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and a little stuck on what
the next move should be.
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Cubillo: [fades back in] …and
it deals with memories, it
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deals with our inner child
nostalgia… and I'm just, yeah
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I’m finding a lot of pictures
that honestly I hadn’t seen in
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years, and to me it’s crazy.
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Roque: [over Wendy speaking]
Wendy starts with a feeling,
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not a format—and that’s
where she gets stuck.
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Cubillo: [over Zoom] At
first I knew the meaning
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behind it, but I didn’t
know what medium to use.
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At first I was gonna create
some sort of magazine with
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photos and then I was like,
I kinda want to work with
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something that’s more immersive,
not so much like a book.”
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Roque: She even tries to
imagine a vanity—you sit,
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look in the mirror, and let
the piece talk back—but the
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right setup never shows up.
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That’s when a memory from one
of those visits to Getty and
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Behold snaps into focus—the room
that did the talking for itself.
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Cubillo: But I did get a lot
of inspiration from the part of
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the exhibit that had the video
piece and the ironing boards.
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I thought that was really cool
how she had the video playing on
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the ironing table and I thought
that was really inspiring
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because it was very immersive.
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So like you walked into this
whole different world really,
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and it was dark and like
everything was just like—you
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got to take in the feel of it.
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So that definitely inspired
my own piece for this class.
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Roque: Now that she knows
the medium fits the message,
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it’s about building the thing
she’s been seeing in her head.
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Cubillo: So the tent itself
is a children’s tent.
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It’s pink, so it’s a
very soft pink color,
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princess drapes on it.
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And as you walk in, it’s…you
would technically have to
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crawl inside, which is kind of
purposeful because I wanted to
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evoke that childhood feeling.
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So I feel like when we
are children you know, we
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are crawling around not
really afraid to really
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get messy, you know.
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Roque: The aim is to show
the work and let you step
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into the feeling it carries.
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If that feeling sounds
familiar, it’s because she’s
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chasing the same immersion
from Behold—but making it hers.
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[Orchestral music begins]
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Cubillo: The inspiration behind
the tent was kind of that
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same feeling of being immersed
into a whole different world.
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So what I was hoping with
that was that people could
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essentially go inside of the
tent and look up, and as they
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were looking up, they would
see these photographs and
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just not only see, I guess, my
story of growing up but also
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think of their own stories.
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Roque: Her artwork is ready, and
the next step is a presentation
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at Altura LA, a gallery in
Lincoln Heights, where Wendy
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and her La Fotos cohort,
who began as guests inside
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María Magdalena Campos-Pons’
Behold at the Getty, are now
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hosting their exhibition.
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[Crowd chatter]
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Cubillo: Everyone’s project
was so different, but also
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blended so well together.
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It was this feeling of just,
like, accomplishment, where
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you’re just like, oh, wow.
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Like we worked on this
for months, and then we
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finally got to see it in a
gallery, in a gallery space.
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Roque: The support is real—and
so is the vulnerability.
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But then what Wendy
hoped for happened.
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Strangers leaned in, and some
even interacted with her work.
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Cubillo: Having projects
like this almost feels
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like you’re naked almost.
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'cause it’s like you're putting
yourself out there and you’re
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just like, okay, now everyone
can see what I’m feeling now.
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That’s kind of scary.
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But at the same time, it's
like a—it's a cool feeling
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'cause you're kind of just
like I did this, I did it.
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Roque: Wendy and the other
Las Fotos students had put
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their deeply personal projects
on display and survived.
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Wendy: There was a moment in
which the girls and I, we went
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up on this little like—'cause
they have a little balcony
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up there and we were saying
thank you to everyone who was
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there and, kind of nervous, but
here we go, we're gonna do it.
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[laughs] Everyone was happy,
you know, they were clapping.
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[Orchestral
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music begins]
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Roque: We started on César
Chávez Ave. in Boyle Heights
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and then went across the
city and up the hill to
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the Getty, into Behold, and
watched a great artist, María
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Magdalena Campos-Pons, model
a way of working: meaning
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first, then the vessel.
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And the students didn’t
come to copy her style.
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They came to hear their
own voices louder.
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Identity, lineage, migration,
memory—said in whatever form
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can hold these big ideas.
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And then something important
happened: the museum
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exhibition didn’t just stay
in a building on a hill.
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Las Fotos came up the hill
and then took it off the hill.
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Yes, Behold was an
exhibition; yes, it’s
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archived online with photos
and a page on Getty’s site.
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But the real meaning is
the show lives on in the
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members of Las Fotos.
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The inspiration from this
experience goes with Wendy and
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the cohort into whatever art
they make next and into who
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they are—the way they carry
themselves, express themselves,
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and identify themselves.
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I’ll give Wendy the last
word on the power of María
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Magdalena Campos-Pons.
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Cubillo: I think her work
had a lot of emphasis on
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emotion, but also being
very unapologetic about it.
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So just being like, all right, I
feel this way and this is what I
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00:17:00,710 --> 00:17:03,569
feel, you know, and just putting
it out there and not being
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afraid to be seen or heard.
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Seeing someone be vulnerable in
a sense, you know, and put that
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vulnerability up on the museum
walls, that is very powerful.
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There’s nobody else that can,
you know, do what you do or live
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the life that you’re living.
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I think instead of focusing
on what other people are
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doing, it’s just like,
be true to yourself.
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[Theme music begins]
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Roque: Thank you for joining me
on this episode of ReCurrent.
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00:17:35,900 --> 00:17:38,309
ReCurrent was written
and produced by me,
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00:17:38,460 --> 00:17:41,810
Jaime, with creative
support from Zoe Goldman.
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00:17:42,510 --> 00:17:46,260
Our executive producer is
Christopher Sprinkle, and
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00:17:46,260 --> 00:17:49,160
for transcripts, images, and
additional resources for this
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00:17:49,190 --> 00:17:54,170
episode, visit getty dot edu
slash podcast slash recurrent.
