This exhibition presents a new body of work by the Mexico-born, Vancouver-based, multi-disciplinary artist Carlos Colín. As both an artist and a scholar, Colín’s work is concerned with the ways that art contributes to social change and social activism in Latin America and its various diasporas. Colín seeks to encourage audiences to better understand and value the wealth and diversity of Mexico and Latin America as a region.
For his project at The Reach, Colín has been conducting research both in Mexico and in the Fraser Valley, focused on the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP). Originally created in 1966, SAWP now brings thousands of workers from Mexico every year to work on Canadian farms. Hundreds of these workers spend up to eight months per year living and working in the Fraser Valley, yet their presence is largely imperceptible to the rest of the population.
For Little México, Colín presents a series sculptural installations, screen-prints, text-based works, and photographs that look closely at the lives and experiences of SAWP participants, in an attempt to render their lives—and their labour—more visible and proportionate to the contribution they make to our community.
