Ernest Silva

(USA, 1948-2014)

Proposal

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The concept for Ernest Silva’s project arose out of the artist’s desire to create a space for children where contemplation and creativity could flourish, while also promoting exchange on a personal level between children on both sides of the border. Entitled Cora’s Rain House/La casa de la lluvia de Cora the artist created two house structures, one at the Casa de la Cultura in Tijuana and one at the Children’s Museum/Museo de los Niños in San Diego, where children were invited to write postcards, stories, poems, and create drawings and songs to be shared with children at the other house, as an exchange of gifts across the border. The house at the Children’s Museum/Museo de los Niños was built as a permanent installation within the museum space and was complete with a tin roof sprinkled by simulated rain from showerheads installed above.

Curator: Robert Sain
Organizer: Children’s Museum/Museo de los Niños
Venue: Casa de la Cultura, Tijuana, and Children’s Museum/Museo de los Niños, San Diego

Acknowledgments

Additional project sponsors
Ecosystems Imagery Inc., The Lucille and Ronald Neeley Foundation, Sony

Process

<p>Ernest Silva in collaboration with Alberto Caro-Limón, <em>Family Trees,</em> INSITE97 (process).</p> <p>Ernest Silva in collaboration with Alberto Caro-Limón, <em>Family Trees,</em> INSITE97 (process).</p> <p>Ernest Silva in collaboration with Alberto Caro-Limón, <em>Family Trees,</em> INSITE97 (process).</p> <p>Ernest Silva in collaboration with Alberto Caro-Limón, <em>Family Trees,</em> INSITE97 (process).</p>

Proposal

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Ernest Silva’s INSITE97 Community Engagement project, Family Trees/Árboles de familias, was a collaboration with artist Alberto Caro-Limón that linked the Children’s Museum/Museo de los Niños in San Diego to the Centro Cultural in Tijuana. Each site allowed children to write their own family stories and draw family portraits. Both installations were brightly colored and filled with images of houses, trees, birds, and birdhouses to symbolize the exchange of memories and stories from one museum to the other. The space at the Children’s Museum was a rain house that functioned as a studio, reading room, and exhibition space for the children’s family projects. At the Centro Cultural, the space contained children-sized houses, benches and work spaces, and painted wood-picket fences and trees. The projects created at each installation then traveled to the other to be exhibited to complete the exchange of stories and perspectives.

Project directors: Claudia Basurto and Lisa Mack
Organizers: Children’s Museum/ Museo de los Niños, San Diego, and Centro Cultural, Tijuana
Venues: Children’s Museum/Museo de los Niños, San Diego, and Centro Cultural, Tijuana

Acknowledgments

David Burke
Esmeralda Carini
Ybeth Caro-Limón
Jon Flores
Norma Medina
John Polk
Melania Santana Rios
Julia Schwadron
Michael Weissenburger