NICOLÁS DUMIT ESTÉVEZ

 Art six years from then

  Six years ago Sara Angel Guerrero-Rippberger approached me about engaging students of the most diverse backgrounds in an art and life workshop at the Queens Museum of Art. Six years later José Rodríguez, from the same organization, asked me to revisit the previous materials with a new group of participants. During the same six years I have grown a significant number of silver hairs, watched family and friends die, expanded the scope of my art practice to uncharted territories, and become conscious of life as a force much, much larger than art, encompassing any artistic gesture that I could possibly think to bring about. On the sixth anniversary of the initial workshop I am having to retrain my brain to spell the name of my hosting institution correctly: the Queens Museum (no longer the Queens Museum of Art), while asking myself in bewilderment: where has “Art” gone? At which point it becomes clear to me that Life itself holds the answer(s).

In the spirit of learning about the role of art in our day to day, I invited recent workshop participants to articulate their thoughts and work with an online audience. Three students chose to respond in writing, while many more will likely express themselves through other channels or by way of their own lived experiences.

August 7th, 2014, New Berlin, NY