Cuban American contemporary artist Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada creates an astonishing piece of land art in the fields of Estopiñán del Castillo (Huesca, north of Spain) as a moving tribute to the inclusive and integrative work of Fundación Crisálida.
NOURISHING SELF-ESTEEM is an artistic work of an ephemeral nature. This artwork will be created in three phases that utilize the change of the seasons and the change of the colors of a wheat field from April to October 2021. This first phase of the artwork was realised using the green color of the wheat field, the light tan color of the soil and the dark tone of compost, on a plot of land in the rural setting of Estopiñán del Castillo, a small town in Aragón, Spain.
The premises of ‘Nourishing Self-Esteem’ are: the respect for the rural surroundings where the artwork is created and to reflect the reality that manifests itself at a local level in the bakery at Fundación Crisálida – an initiative for integration into the workplace of nine people with intellectual disabilities that coexist and work together making bread, cakes, cupcakes, croissants, panettones and cookies that they distribute in the local area and the region.
“Nourishing Self-Esteem” features a pair of hands (the small hand of a child and an adult hand) that are coming together. Hands are tools that facilitate and sustain life. They are symbols of the power of creation, of balance between giving and taking, and the potential of all that we can manifest through the action of work.
Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada – an artist known for his murals and large interventions realized in the public space – along with Iris, Aleix, Martí, Cristina, Álex, David, Jacinto, Carina, Caroline, Jennifer, Esmeralda, Ana, Milla, Alén and many locals, create this work that will continue to change for the next six months with three interventions.
Nourishing Self-Esteem looks to reverse the lack of love, the lack of recognition, the dismissal that is common in the experience of social exclusion, intellectual disability, and situations of abandonment. Nourishing Self-Esteem impacts on a personal level, but also is reflected on a community level: We nourish self-esteem when we create ties that unite us to others, when we feel like part of a family, when we know that we are useful, and know that our contribution impacts in the wellbeing of the community.
We nourish self-esteem through contact with nature, feeling a sense of gratitude for what the earth gives us, gratitude for the work that sustains us, and pride for what we have completed.
Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada is a Cuban American contemporary artist based in Barcelona Spain.
He was a founder of the New York City Culture Jamming movement and is an innovator in the international urban art scene. Since the late 90´s he has been replacing the faces of cultural icons chosen by advertisers with the faces of anonymous people to question the controls imposed on public space, the role models that are designated to represent us and the type of events that deserve more public discourse.
He has created large scale murals and land art works around the world in locations such as the United States, Morocco, Lebanon, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Argentina, France, The United Kingdom, Bahrain, Spain, etc. Among his other projects are the smaller-format pieces for gallery exhibitions such as the ‘Fragment Series’, ‘Urban Analogies Series,’ and the ‘Memorylythics series.’ Gerada has also collaborated in many cultural projects and exhibitions around the world.
Check out below for more photos of the project.
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