Based in 1993 by a bunch of Latinx artists and cultural staff, the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Academic Middle within the Decrease East Facet has for 3 a long time been a bastion of Latinx arts and tradition. On the Clemente, positioned in a historic neo-Gothic constructing relationship to 1897, visuals arts within the galleries butt towards a strong cohort of assorted theater teams, alongside a number of artist studios.
Final fall, the Clemente launched a three-year initiative known as “Historias.” With a big grant from the Rauschenberg Basis, the citywide initiative will see the Clemente accomplice with varied cultural organizations, like Efficiency House New York, to create a sequence of packages, occasions, and exhibitions by way of oral histories and various types of storytelling and analysis that purpose to inform a fuller image of New York Metropolis by centering the contributions of Latinx folks to this historical past. “Historias, that means each histories and tales, is greater than only a celebration—it’s an pressing political intervention,” the Clemente declares on its dedicated website for the initiative, which is able to function a repository for its programming, which runs by way of fall 2026.
In April, the “Historias” initiative will arrange three occasions. An exhibition, “Historietas: Latinx Comix as Alternative Histories,” operating April 6 to Could 31 within the Clemente’s fourth flooring gallery, that appears on the historical past of Latinx comedian books. On April 16, Efficiency House New York will host “Remesas y Sobremesa: Tequio (Mutual Aid) in an Era of Deportation and Borders,” an occasion over a shared meal that can contain conversations about “mutual help as an important response to anti-immigrant insurance policies and easy methods to present rapid and long-term reduction to fractured communities” that shall be led by artist and anthropologist Cynthia Santos-Briones, tutorial Michel Castañeda, journalist Paola Ramos, and photographer Natalia Mendez. From April 25 to Could 25, the Bronx Artwork House could have on view an exhibition titled “¡Te Amo Porque S.O.S. Pueblo!” that includes 38 artists who’ve “personally lived the realities of the U.S. borderland industrial advanced” and whose names have been stored nameless for his or her security, in line with the web site.
To study extra about “Historias,” ARTnews spoke with Libertad Guerra, the Clemente’s govt director and chief curator.
This dialog has been edited and condensed for concision and readability.
Scenes from the block occasion that launched the “Historias” sequence, outdoors the Clemente.
ARTnews: How did the “Historias” initiative come to be, and the way do you see it becoming into the Clemente’s mission and historical past?
Libertad Guerra: The Clemente is among the quintessential New York downtown organizations that New Yorkers really feel is a crucial a part of the town’s cultural vibrancy. Principally, it catalyzes the creation of recent work from unbiased artists and producers and cultural staff, so that you’d really feel it if it wasn’t there. However clearly, it’s below the radar. The group is now greater than 30 years previous, and I joined in 2020, proper earlier than the pandemic. However I actually have beforehand been a beneficiary of the place, after I was sporting a number of hats as a producer, curator, and so on. So I do know the void that it fills. It’s housed in a city-owned constructing from the flip of the century, designed by Charles B.J. Snyder, when he was the superintendent of college buildings again when faculties had been thought of palaces for the folks, and the structure actually displays that. Over time, it was deserted after which went by way of completely different phases, however within the early ’90s, cultural activists, largely in theater, made it right into a cultural middle for Latinos with a mission that it could serve everyone. As a real downtown group, artists ended up getting studios there.
The Clemente has since develop into this hybrid ecosystem the place it homes one of many largest residency packages within the metropolis—long-term ones, rotating ones, and micro residencies—which we’ve just lately added extra of. It advantages increasingly more artists. It additionally homes an ecosystem of 13 to 14 small arts organizations, largely Latino-centered. It has 4 theaters. It has two galleries. And we, as a company, conduct our personal authentic programming, which is the place “Historias” suits in as a codification of our programmatic design. We’re additionally very a lot concerned in cultural advocacy for Latinos. Originally of 2020, we cofounded the LxNY consortium, which has now grown to about 45 Latinx-focused arts organizations in New York Metropolis to discover useful resource sharing, collaboration, technique, coverage methods. “Historias” is the primary initiative that’s centered on producing and collaborating on packages at a city-wide stage versus extra behind the scenes coverage and strategic pondering. It’s led by the Clemente however the construction of it’s to harness the property of this community.
Scenes from the block occasion that launched the “Historias” sequence, outdoors the Clemente.
Did you come to the Clemente with the “Historias” initiative in thoughts or did it come out organically when you’d already began?
“Historias” got here out organically, however it stems from what the Clemente is. It’s such an lively area on a regular basis that it’s actually tough for folks to pinpoint only one factor that it’s as a result of it’s so many issues to so many individuals. The visible arts neighborhood, the theatrical neighborhood, the heritage preservation of us, festivals, the people who the unbiased resident artists carry to their studios are all there. As a result of it’s so many issues to so many individuals that it’s tough to cohere into only one id. Moderately than filtering that or simplifying it, what we’re attempting to do is streamline all these identities into “Historias.” Our essential mission is to be a cultural middle that’s for Latinos, by Latinos, however it’s additionally way more than that as a result of we’re within the Decrease East Facet and downtown Manhattan and that belongs to everybody. And anyway, our definition of the town is one in every of relationality, not one in every of static identities. So “Historias” grew to become an concept that I used to be nurturing, and at last we acquired funding for it from the Rauschenberg Basis. The purpose is to cohere all the pieces that the Clemente is doing by default, with like collaboration and partnerships, but additionally to place us extra squarely in keeping with public humanities initiatives of analysis and of offering platforms that keep after the occasions, which features a digital platform that acts because the repository of all the pieces that we’re seeding. That repository contains the tales [from the community] that we’re rescuing by way of our scholarly and institutional advisors right into a timeline and mapping venture. We purpose to create one thing that’s each for researchers in addition to lay publics to go deeper, in the event that they need to.
On the identical time, we’re sort of hacking the system. Organizations of shade are all the time underfunded. We do loads with slightly. We’ve got a price range of lower than $2 million a 12 months. What’s our secret? It’s the fixed collaboration and partnership that occurs, and the way we harness that to scale past our sources. It’s additionally very experimental in format in that manner. That’s the place the LxNY community is available in: how can we use that as a area? It’s not an both/or. It’s about how we elevate everyone and the way we complement one another to create a much bigger affect. To me, that’s a story affect, which is tremendous important. I additionally wished us to discover that correlation between fact-based histories and the position that artists and cultural producers can play in translating fact-based tales to see how we are able to re-historicize what New York Metropolis is as a result of Latinos make up virtually one-third of New York’s inhabitants. We’re the biggest immigrant group taken collectively. However the ways in which we’re credited when it comes to shaping the town itself may be very tokenized or simply merely not talked about. That’s additionally a part of the purpose, in addition to what’s the position of the cultural area in in preserving or rescuing that, or giving it visibility?
Scenes from the block occasion that launched the “Historias” sequence, outdoors the Clemente.
Are you able to discuss extra in regards to the tales you’re attempting to gather and get well?
The simplest solution to perceive it’s that latinidad is an evolving factor. It’s not static, particularly in New York Metropolis. We see the town as having a number of positionalities which are relational. So we determined to anchor our storytelling below six themes, which we name thematic tracks: city ecology, migration and non secular perception, embodied heritage, on a regular basis poetics, materials tradition and reminiscence, and labor and commerce. “Historias” can be divided into three phases over the course of the three-year initiative. Proper now, we’re within the first part, “Historias Sembradas” (Sown Histories), by which we’re pondering in public, seeding connections with not solely completely different companions and establishments, each throughout the community that I discussed but additionally exterior and exterior establishments, in addition to doing commissions with artists. All of them will elucidate a facet of the thematic tracks. That’s the macro stage of construction for “Historias.”
Libertad Guerra.
Courtesy Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Academic Middle within the Decrease East
Then we even have a signature sequence of packages. We wished to alter the standard method. The principle questions had been, how can we reclaim narratives in a metropolis that has usually left us out of the official story, after which, how can we root ourselves in these areas of belonging whereas navigating a metropolis that’s always in flux? That’s a part of the essence of the town, so we don’t need to go towards that dynamism, however on the identical time, how do we discover that anchor, that area. I assumed it was wanted to reimagine the standard artwork discuss or panel format by centering dwelling archives, which I’d say come by way of play, by way of efficiency, by way of ritual, by way of relationality. Then we focus additional in on what I contemplate tables of connection. There are two packages that revolve round completely different prototypes of tables of connection. One is what we’re calling “Remesas y Sobremesa.” It’s a play on the thought of remittances, these connections that transcend borders, that go to the motherlands, and the way dwelling in New York Metropolis itself, as Juan Flores would say, is a diaspora metropolis. There’s not a static id; it’s always forwards and backwards. “Remesa” is one thing that numerous cultures do, Latinos included, of taking a subject additional within the coziness and the nourishing atmosphere of a meal, so it’s all very embodied. It’s additionally very ritual infused. We’ll have six of those, one per thematic observe.
The primary one, in December at Efficiency House New York, was for the labor and commerce observe, labor, economies, and collective energy. There was an set up with a bodega-inspired aesthetic and meals, and the invited audio system represented the Road Vendor Mission, the Employee’s Justice Mission, and the United Bodegas of America. It was wonderful to seek out these connections between labor and tradition, and the way it all suits within the cultural panorama of our cultural establishments for us. We’ve got to see this as a part of our personal method to cultural manufacturing and illustration for the artwork world. What do the supply staff’ rights should do with cultural establishments of shade? Effectively, loads really, as a result of that’s the id of numerous our neighborhoods and what we declare to protect and symbolize, and in addition the way it may play a job in solidarities, answer constructing, and even coverage pondering throughout the board. Every little thing was performed because the panelists, moderators, and the general public at massive had been all embedded collectively whereas consuming. It was very relational, not this top-down formatting.
Curiously sufficient, an instance of somebody who bridged these two was our namesake, Clemente Soto Vélez. He was a Puerto Rican political prisoner who was exiled to New York Metropolis, and he was an avant-garde poet. He mentored so many cultural staff and artists. And although he was a communist, he based the Puerto Rican Retailers Affiliation within the mid-century. That’s an instance of a cultural employee and artist realizing that this stuff should not separated, and that tradition is embedded in your atmosphere, and that it’s additionally a part of the way you declare your proper to the town.
Stills from Domino Desk Talks, a video sequence produced by Sandenwolff Productions, 2025.
Courtesy Public Artwork Fund and The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Academic Middle
And what’s the second prototype you wished to experiment with for the “Historias” initiative?
The opposite prototype that we wished to discover is thru play, which can be a ritual. These are the Domino Desk Talks. The domino desk is an emblem to so many, however actually the Caribbean and Latin American neighborhood. It’s about relating it to public area. Dominoes are a stage of embodied data, connection, and storytelling, however it additionally reveals loads about cultural hybridity. By way of these conversations, you see the way it doesn’t simply belong to anybody. We’re not attempting to say that is only a Latino factor. No, quite the opposite, this is sort of a quick circuit so that you can declare your presence in no matter neighborhood, on the sidewalk, and the way you really rework your personal id and go traditions onto different folks. What we what we determined to do was to superimpose a recreation on high of the sport. So, there’s the domino desk, and the symbolism that comes with it. However we additionally wished it to mirror on wherever the domino recreation is going down. The launch final fall was with the Public Artwork Fund and the sculpture the group commissioned by Edra Soto is in Central Park.
We had been additionally impressed by these superstar poker video games from just like the ’90s. We wished to do one thing comparable by curating who the gamers are, from completely different backgrounds, ages, experience, largely cultural staff and artists, for them to mirror with sure prompts that we might give them. Whereas they’re enjoying, they’ve these prompts that they organically carry up of their conversations, however all the pieces was performed by way of the lens of domino enjoying. One instance was about transnational id and the way the sport of domino symbolizes that. The intergenerational data that you just’re offering different folks, the cultural syncretism that occurs if you end up evaluating completely different modes of domino enjoying, from, for instance, Cubans to Venezuelans to African People, and the embodied data which comes by way of that ritual, and people archives which are ingrained in us. One other was about taking on area or reclaiming area— the truth that you’re taking on area in a sidewalk and the way it’s not only a mode of transit. That is the way you reassert your self, your presence, in your neighborhood, maybe it’s one that’s being gentrified. So this turns into an act of resistance towards gentrification. We purpose to have no less than 10 to 12 episodes to finish the sequence for the Domino Desk Talks.
Stills from Domino Desk Talks, a video sequence produced by Sandenwolff Productions, 2025.
Courtesy Public Artwork Fund and The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Academic Middle
Enjoying dominos as a mode to have these intergenerational conversations is such an fascinating method. That to me looks like one of many methods—cooking could be one other—by which elders could be weak and go on data.
That’s the embodied data. That’s what we imply once we say the dwelling archive as a result of the tales are those which are usually not within the official archive. It’s a follow the place you must use a part of your mind to do one thing that’s virtually ritualistic. Most creativity comes whenever you’re doing one thing that doesn’t take up a lot of your mind energy, however that you know the way to do it sort of in automative manner—that’s the place you’re extra inventive. That ingredient of play and ritual liberates you to a different zone of your mind to then make these connections. It places you within the zone of sharing, of constructing belief, of constructing mutuality. If that’s taking place within the intimacy with your loved ones, think about what occurs when it occurs by way of diasporic communities which are strangers to a brand new place, they usually’re doing it in public. That political assertion means: we’re going to be right here, we’re going to be seen. We’re going to place ourselves in a weak area and, on the identical time, open ourselves as much as construct belief and to construct new communities—what I name “unintended communities,” that aren’t simply the static neighborhood of your ethnic origin within the metropolis. This goes towards top-down metropolis planning fashions.
How else will “Historias” develop over the approaching two-plus years?
As all of that is taking place whereas the Clemente, a city-owned constructing that we’re the stewards of, goes by way of a serious capital venture renovation to make the constructing absolutely ADA-compliant and accessible, in addition to investing in renovating the theaters and different areas. (It’s a greater than 120-year-old constructing, and all this time, it’s by no means had an elevator.) I’m calling it Clemente 3.0 as a result of throughout this time we shall be a bit quieter, although we’re not absolutely near the general public. The Clemente continues to be open, and it by no means stops. Typically folks name it the constructing that doesn’t sleep. For that motive, numerous the of the occasions should not essentially taking place on the Clemente, which is a part of the purpose of the “Historias” venture, as a method to do analysis, develop commissions, and seed concepts that may later be revealed as soon as the renovation is full in 2026. It will all culminate with an exhibition within the new, renovated galleries on the Clemente, in addition to some commissions that shall be citywide.
