In the middle of a Williamsburg gallery on Nov 3, an altar of framed photos of deceased loved ones was nestled under a magnificent 10-foot arch adorned with marigolds. Encircling the altar was the work of nine Latine New School artists celebrating Día de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, a holiday honoring the dead often through art and artifacts.
“Hasta La Muerte (‘Til Death Do Us Part)” was the first ever exhibit for CHISMOSI, an art collective at The New School founded by Parsons sophomores Rosa Acevedo and Sofia Antebi to uplift Latine women and LGBTQIA+ creatives. The themes for the one-night exhibit at AM:PM Gallery were “memories, life and death, heritage, ancestry…looking back in order to move forward,” Acevedo said.
Acevedo said that at a predominantly white institution such as Parsons School of Design, they felt the need to connect and uplift other Latine students, particularly those in the LGBTQ+ community. “It’s the marginalized subsect of an already marginalized community,” they said.
The collective’s name is a gender-neutral form of the Spanish word “chismosa,” which Acevedo said was once a derogatory label for women who gossip.
“We’ve come to realize that chisme (gossip) is really integral to the Latino community,” Acevedo said. “It’s a form of protection and a form of bonding and a form of healing.”
So what exactly does the group do?
Antebi said, “Make shit together, do cool shit, hang out and be able to speak our native language to each other.” In other words: “We just wanted to have a community of bad bitch Latinas.”
Many of the student artists’ showed their work for the first time at the event, including selling a zine cookbook of recipes compiled from members’ families called “COCINA CHISMOSI.”
Food and art are central to Día de los Muertos, a holiday originating in pre-colonial Mexico that is now celebrated across Latin America and the diaspora.
Artists explored the holiday’s themes through a variety of mediums, including Mexican designer Emilio Poiré Alger’s fashion, Holland de Klerk’s photographs of their living ancestors in California, and Sebastian Guerrero’s wooden Peruvian retablo, a box depicting religious or everyday figures.
They also explored death – and life – in many unique forms. Sarah Abdellatif-Chaves’s cyanotypes examine her grandmother’s terminal cancer diagnosis coupled with her memory loss. “How do we grieve someone who is still alive?” her artist statement said.
Martina Duque showcased a watercolor and gouache portrait of her friend, Parsons student Jensen Holliday, who passed away last November, alongside a muslin sculpture created in the aftermath. “I feel like it’s very taboo sometimes to talk about death and suicide,” she said, “so it’s really wonderful to show my art about grief in a space where it’s so celebrated.”
Despite the serious subjects, the night was alive with music, dancing, and joy. “I think American culture, there’s this connotation of death and morbid and sadness,” Acevedo said. “We don’t engage with death the same way in Latin culture…everyone mourns, but part of the healing is celebrating.”
CHISMOSI received grant funding from the University Student Senate to purchase necessary supplies and utilize an outside gallery space for the event. Acevedo said AM:PM Gallery was the “perfect” place for this exhibit because it is Latino-owned.
“Being in community with ourselves in a gallery space, I think was really special to us for it not to be an elitist gallery, but it still feels like a space we’re welcome,” Acevedo said.
The gallery opens into a brick-walled, high-ceilinged room selling colorful hand-painted clothing, hats, and shoes and leads to the white exhibit room showcasing the night’s art. In a dimly lit space in the back, visitors could sit on a couch and enjoy the gallery’s own vibrant art storeroom.
Joseph Michael Diaz, the Puerto Rican founder and owner of AM:PM Gallery, first worked with TNS Student Leadership and Involvement almost a year ago to exhibit a different student art show. He is passionate about creating space for young artists of color: “I’m for the people.”
“I’m born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, right, so I understand artists’ missions and the difficulties…even getting into a show,” he said. “It’s really the community that’s helping the space live because it’s so needed.”
Throughout the night, the gallery vibrated with joyful and loving energy.
“Spaces like this allow certain voices that haven’t been heard as often as others to…be able to shine in their own right,” de Klerk said. “And not only show our art, but show our community and what that means to us.”