Identity, Power, and Art: April 4th, Create Your Name (Inner Vandal)

Join artist SPEAKS, RiNo Art District, and RedLine Contemporary Art Center for a program series centered on exploring identity and creating art. This workshop series runs all of 2024 and ends in a group show celebrating the artwork participants create. In this series we aim to deepen and explore our personal connections to our artistic and creative expressions. We also ask questions about how we view and understand ourselves in relation to art. What does it mean to truly“identify” with someone’s artwork? What does it mean to see ourselves in our art?

This workshop series builds. Join us for each workshop to get deeper into your exploration of self and creative practice. The workshop series culminates with a group art show. Drop ins and one-off attendees are very welcome! Participants will be provided with art making materials. Light food and drink will be provided.

April 4th: Create Your Name (Inner Vandal) — Let’s explore what it means to own your name and not be ashamed of it. Since birth we have been given a name that may or may not represent our identity in the way we would like it too. Some people change their names and others take on new aliases outside of their birth name. What does it look like when we take ownership of our name, and are not ashamed to express it, but are proud of it? This event is co-hosted by artist Diego Florez-Arroyo.

Meet SPEAKS — Devin Urioste is born and raised in Denver. His work is influenced by the culture he was raised in and embodies what it means to give his community a voice, and platform to speak from. His work is rooted in graffiti, skateboarding, music, street culture, social justice, and many more. (IG: @goodlooksvol.1)

Meet Diego Florez-Arroyo — Diego Florez-Arroyo is a full time poet, artist, and musician. Diego has worked on and produced a variety of projects from large scale prefabricated installations to multi media theatrical performances. Diego is a founding member of the Denver band Los Mocochetes. He regularly performs with longtime Denver improvisational avante-garde group Art Compost and Word Mechanics at the legendary Mercury Cafe, and is a part of Soul Jazz Rock Trio The Cosmosmiths.Earlier this year, he opened an art installation and exhibit at Alto Gallery of RiNo Art Park, called Mensajes Mestizos (“messages from the mixed ones”), focusing on the spectrum of diversity among Chicano and Mexicano peoples along the American southwest, and northern Mexican region, before and after the establishment of colonial borders.Coming out of 2 runs of his debut play “Cuauhtémoczin” bridging writing, music, and visual projections this story dives deep into the subconscious of the protagonist Dante, as he navigates the boundaries of the realities of prison-life and the prison of his mind to find liberation from 500 years of darkness and disconnect from Aztec culture, traditions, language, and basic humanist ways of life. Repeatedly imprisoned, Dante fights for liberation mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and, most importantly, physically to find his connection with the last Aztec tlatoani, Cuauhtemoc. Exploring the family dynamics of a single parent home, Cuauhtémoczin dissects the prison of religion, the self-imposed limitations of adequacy and acceptance, and carrying the weight of the byproducts of assimilation starting in 1492. IG: @leondelasflorez