Whether you’re a fluent Spanish speaker or just getting comfortable using the language aloud, all are welcome at the upcoming The Pulitzer in Spanish! tour. Starting July 31, educator Karla Aguilar will offer tours of Faye HeavyShield: Confluences in Spanish, including code-switching, along with interactive activities.
The exhibition first opened at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in March of this year. Confluences features a lifetime of work from First Nations artist Faye HeavyShield, with pieces dating back to the 1980s. HeavyShield’s exhibition includes drawings, sculptures, and installations created using a variety of media, making it the perfect exhibition for an inclusive and interactive tour.
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“This Spanish tour is going to be kind of the last opportunity to catch the Faye HeavyShield exhibition before it closes on August 6.” Aguilar says.
While Aguilar leads the tour, attendees will carry Post-It notes and are encouraged to reflect on the relationship between art and ecology through different questions Aguilar will pose.
“It’s basically just small phrases that I’ve related with the pieces,” Aguilar says. “For instance, one of the pieces is called ‘Fort Belly.’ There will be an entire discussion about a mountain that looks like a pregnant belly, so what I’ll ask people to write in their Post-Its is, ‘I am…,’ and then a part of their body they feel identifies them the most.”
Visitors are also encouraged to talk amongst themselves, sharing thoughts or anecdotes with other members of the St. Louis Hispanic community. The tour will be led in mostly Spanish, but Aguilar wants all levels of Spanish speakers to feel welcome.
“While I think it’s important to have tours and activities led in Spanish, it’s also important to reclaim English with accents,” Aguilar says. “There are people that understand Spanish, but because of different circumstances, they prefer not to speak it aloud, so I think that’s what’s really interesting about the tour. We’ve really tried to make it a safe space for everyone that wants to have discussions about art in Spanish or Spanish and English.”
Aguilar will end the tour by encouraging visitors to participate in a final interactive activity, in which the whole group will work together, using the Post-It notes they’ve accumulated , to recreate the design process of one of HeavyShield’s pieces, titled “Aiyo Niitahtaan.” After recreating the piece, visitors are then encouraged to share their thoughts on the group’s recreation and the original artwork.
The Pulitzer in Spanish Tour is just part of the work that Aguilar has been doing to make local art galleries more inclusive. Aguilar is also the curator of the Millstone Gallery at the Center of Creative Arts (COCA), where she is always looking to create inclusive and interactive spaces.
“I really like the idea of having a space inside the gallery where people feel they can do things,” she says. “I also try to incorporate accessible designs in the exhibitions. In all my exhibitions, the most common comment to me is ‘the positions of the pieces are quite low,’ and I explain to [people] that it’s because we might have visitors who are in a wheelchair, or just kids.” The gallery also provides accessibility resources such as audio descriptions of pieces.
Aguilar hopes that her work at the Millstone Gallery, along with the Pulitzer Spanish Tour, will encourage the practice of more accessible and inclusive art spaces, as well as inspire more interactive and discussion-filled art galleries.
“These are not really extensive practices,” says Aguilar. “These are things I think every gallery should incorporate.”
