2024 4th Annual Community Gathering
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The 2024 Community Gathering is the fourth annual live art healing event that will occur at Nurture on September 1st 2024, located in Denver’s Northside neighborhood.
The Community Gathering commemorates Escuela Tlatelolco, a social justice school founded by Corky Gonzalez in the 1960s. The school closed in 2017.
The last three years’ gatherings have focused on healing emotional wounds that were created when the school closed abruptly and the Chicano murals inside and outside of the school were erased.
When we first began the annual gathering in 2021, the displaced school community members that attended were in turmoil, pain, and shock surrounding the erasure of the murals. The event gave people a space for self-expression, grieving and eventually joy!
The 2024 gathering promises to be educational, inspiring and culturally inclusive. Come meet the artist, David Ocelotl Garcia, who will share his vision of the art installation “Energy of Life”!
INSPIRATION
Chicana muralist Carlota Espinoza is the inspiration for the gathering. Her mural was featured outside of Escuela Tlatelolco for 29 years and was part of the community’s identity before it was erased.
Fundraising Goal $60,000
Money Raised $1268.36
Previous Years Community Gatherings
Tlatelolco Reimagined
After three years of working directly on community healing, we are in collaboration with Nurture, the current occupants of the former Escuela Tlatelolco, about bringing Chicano art back to the building! The idea is an art installation “Energy of Life,” imagined by David Garcia. It will include ancestral characters, pollinators, and animals that traverse through time and space, representing the resilience of the Chicano movement, and how the Spirit of Tlatelolco has regenerated in Nurture Denver.
The form of the installation will have 2-D and 3-D aspects and can be viewed while going from the first floor to the second floor of the building. The location, going from one plane to the next, represents change and transformation from what was, to what is, to what will be.
The installation will connect the school’s legacy with Nurture Denver, which has become a Wellcare MarketPlace. The school was named after Plaza de Tlatelolco in Mexico, in memory of university students who were massacred in 1968 in Plaza de Tlatelolco, during a peaceful protest.
Today Nurture serves its patrons through medicinal and ancient healing modalities, much like Tlatelolco.
COLLABORATORS
I am Neena Massey of Neena Expressions, a multidisciplinary artist and former teacher of the Escuela Tlatelolco. I am collaborating with David Ocelotl Garcia, Chicano visual artist of Denver, and Kelly Campbell, co-founder of Nurture Denver, to create an installation art piece that will live inside Nurture Denver, former site of Escuela Tlatelolco.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
The people we have partnered with believe in everyone having a voice. Gathering participants are members of the Escuela community, political figures, muralists, scholars and social organizations against Chicano mural erasure.
Participants will engage more this year by supporting the Gathering’s fundraising efforts to bring the “Energy of Life” installation to Nurture. Some of these fundraising events include an artist talk, a silent auction, a themed happy hour, and a workshop where community gathering members will help to paint the installation.
Once the installation has been completed, all participants, guests and new community members will be invited to the gathering to celebrate the unveiling of the new installation at Nurture and enjoy a carefully curated experience. To join our community, please contact neenaexpressions@gmail.com.
We are requesting funds to create this installation with the intent of continuing the legacy of the school, and to teach new communities the significance of Denver‘s cultural arts.
COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS
Private Contributors
Arelia Serrano
David Orr
Jeanette and Shirley Hardie
Jendi Reider
Linda Shaw
Nita Gonzales
Sonia Shafi
Thank you to our friends who continue to believe in our vision for this project!