Creative Fusion Outcomes: To Tijuana and Back, and Forth
Artist Corrie Slawson and writer Marc Lefkowitz met Tijuana (via Beijing) artists Daniel Ruanova and Mely Barragan when they were Spring 2013 Creative Fusion residents at Zygote Press. The four participated in the Rooms to Let project in Columbus, exploring pre-conceived notions attached to places, especially those that have had infamous moments in their past. After their time at Zygote, Barragan and Ruanova invited the Cleveland couple to a 4-week residency at their TJ in CHINA Project Space, which they relocated from Beijing to Tijuana, Mexico.
With their 3-year-old son, Ira, in tow, Slawson produced work that explored the structure of the border fence and the political significance of color on painted on structures in Tijuana. Lefkowitz wrote a series of articles for GreenCityBlueLake (gcbl.org) that explored the effect that sharing a border with the U.S. has had on Tijuana’s urban and natural landscape. This work was exhibited in the first group show of TJinChina, on Avenida Revolucion, in a space that Ruanova and Barragan converted from shuttered curio shop. It was also included in an exhibit at the Centro Cultural de Tijuana (CECUT). The couple (and Ira, now 6) returned to Tijuana this year to explore another body of work that they plan exhibit at Shaheen Modern and Contemporary in Spring 2017.