Rasquache Residency

Rasquache is a seasonal artist residency and center taking place annually every summer in San Francisco Coapan, Cholula, Puebla, Mexico. The location of the residency is of particular importance because of its cultural richness and relevancy to the artist brothers, Federico and David Cuatlacuatl's experience growing up as undocumented immigrants in the U.S.  They both immigrated to the U.S in 1999, to reunite with their parents after being separated from them for almost five years.  After fifteen years of growing up as undocumented immigrants and unable to return back to Mexico, they were able to finally travel back to their hometown in the summer of 2016. The purpose of their travel to Mexico was to host and establish the Rasquache Residency at their parent’s house which had been unoccupied for more than twenty years. This project is a continuity of Federico's current artistic research which strives to disseminate topics of immigration, cultural sustainability, and social art practice. 

Rasquache is an exchange that develops new relationships between art and community beyond those of production and consumption. Rasquache functions as a cross-cultural mirror utilizing artistic community engagement as a tool to develop relational currency. Rasquache sees ourselves in one another.  ​Rasquachismo is an aesthetic, a way of working, and a lifestyle where cultural wealth takes precedence. Rasquache is the ability to sustain communities with the tools at hand.  ​Rasquache is convivencia; only taking what you experience through storytelling and memory. The exchange honors the spiritual connection between the people, the land, and the creative process, always keeping a love, appreciation, and consideration for what is already here.

Interview with Federico Cuatlacuatl

Interview by Andreana Donahue

Hi Federico! Can you tell us about your background in social art practice and what led to your interest in community engagement?

Hey! Thank you so much for offering Rasquache this opportunity!

Everything really stems from my personal experiences and that of my community, continuing to endure the debris of colonization and forced to self-displace from our very own hometown in Mexico. I grew up undocumented and went to undergraduate as an undocumented student all four years.  Most of my community don’t have the privilege of pursuing higher education, but their resiliency and persistency in keeping our traditions alive here is what deeply inspires me to continue investing in community engagements. After nearly 30 years since we left our hometown, I continue to see my community’s diasporas across the country continue to thrive and build cultural ecosystems in their own geographies. I noticed this when I was in graduate school and this really shifted my work to be more in tune and pragmatic on how my own practice can produce things to happen rather than just making things based on these experiences. Getting a degree in higher education became such a powerful agency over my own experience but also became a responsibility to amplify my community’s narrative.

I know you co-founded Rasquache with your late brother David, who was also an artist. How has it been for you, continuing to pursue your shared vision of this residency without him?

I have never felt my brother closer to me than in his physical absence. He’s present and with me now more than ever, which makes Rasquache that much more special for me in continuing to pour more love and intention behind every step we make. Rasquache was already a very personal and emotional journey for both of us and continues to be as we seek ways that Rasquache embodies our collective artistic spirits. I miss David every single day and I try to channel this to become radical tender gestures into Rasquache and my personal work. We shared the love for our parent’s sacrifices and the love for our community. So I try to communicate this with other artists at Rasquache and continuing to develop how our artistic projects become loving gestures for Coapan, the same way that David approached our initial work in 2016. He built a wood-fired oven in Rasquache’s backyard which was used for our closing event to bake bread and pizza with the community. He was a painter but this became his focus as part of his time there to engage more with the community. This is definitely a guiding spirit within Rasquache, to shift our creative practices to be more community-oriented and to be in tune with how our contemporary practices have more potential when we engage with communities.

Can you tell us about your hometown San Francisco Coapan? How have immigration issues and long-term family separations affected this small community?

San Francisco Coapan is such a beautiful and complex pocket of time and space. We hold one of the oldest and original recipes of the Cacao drink in Mesoamerica. To this day, most families grow corn every year for self-sustainability and not as an investment for income, operating on the periphery of capitalism. It has become a trilingual community: some of the elders being the last generation to speak Nahuatl; Spanish being the dominant language, and English being the main language spoken by the new U.S born generations who are finally making their way back to visit. Our traditions are heavily dictated by the catholic calendar, no surprise there when you find out that one of the living myths in tourism there is that we have 365 catholic churches within all municipalities…..colonization of religion was no joke there! Regardless, our traditions are deeply woven into year-round festivities. Coapan really embodies the living encounter of Spanish colonization and indigeneity. These deeply rooted traditions are what keep this transborder community resilient and have developed beautiful coping mechanisms for intergenerational self-preservation. The sadness and melancholy are lived on both sides of the border as families continue waiting for their return home. It is the uncertainty of this return that is the hardest to live with, many children were left behind (including David and me) and some were lucky to reunite with their parents in the U.S while others continue waiting.

When you returned to start Rasquache in 2016, what unexpected challenges did you encounter? How did you initially build relationships in Coapan?

Haha, so so many challenges! It was the practicality of running utilities, tools to work with, fixing the house up to accommodate artists, and of course the emotional journey of being home again since 1999.  Coapan has barely any water service, so most families still rely on their own water wells.  This was a big challenge for us to get ours up and running again. Transportation was a big challenge as well so we had to rent a van from someone in Coapan for two months.  Now we have our very own old VW bus! Which also required some major reparations. 

Coapan has a beautiful spirit and culture of hospitality, so artists were immediately part of local traditions and festivities.  This was the first and most important step in building relationships, by conviviendo(co-living) with the community.  But Coapan was also very confused why so many foreigners would want to live and work there.  They were only able to see these artists as tourists at first. So it has taken and continues to take some effort to build relationships and modes of working together with the community.  It has been a huge learning process to constantly edit and allow for Rasquache to naturally take shape and form in relation to the community.  I had spent most of my life in the U.S and didn’t realize how much of a westernized thinking I was trying to impose on this residency.  Coapan is such a special place and cultural ecosystem that we continue to learn from and with so that we can allow for the residency to be as special and unique.

Can you talk a bit about the decision to host a residency at a location that has such significance in your personal history?

Since the mid 1990s my parents had been investing in fixing up their house and even sending furniture and appliances back to keep their dream alive of returning someday. Most who have migrated continue to do this. David and I saw this as an opportunity to honor my parents and their sacrifices. Coapan is full of festivities all year almost every day and love to host people in their homes, so this has filled my parents with joy and sees all artists staying there as extended family. Launching this residency in Coapan was also a gesture to revitalize this connection to our home, especially for the new generations born in the U.S. We knew that the specificities that Coapan has to offer would give artists opportunities to amplify social practice on the periphery of capitalism and in a Mexico that is more real than Cancun, Puebla City, or other tourist areas.

Attending a traditional residency can sometimes become a solitary endeavor, with many artists focused on working independently in separate studios. How do you connect with artists ideal for Rasquache’s experimental model, who actively invite collaboration and reciprocity?

Yeah, this continues to be in our conversations on how to develop a model that works with the ideal artists. We decided to temporarily cancel open calls so that we can better focus on allowing Rasquache more time to self-form as we continue experimenting with various initiated projects. ‘We’ has become a tight group of artists that have previously attended Rasquache or recently invited, so we have been working recently under more of a collective or family model. This group of artists has been working closely together since 2018 in short-term and long-term initiatives. This same group of artists has functioned as Rasquache’s extended networks to invite other artists who we know will beautifully align with our current and future endeavors. In 2018, we had a retreat in Virginia to discuss this and many other components of the residency. We found that doing an invite-only model, for now, will allow for community priorities and urgencies to better shape and inform Rasquache so that we can have a better model of assessing which artists would be ideal to host in future open calls.

Can you share your perspective on cultivating thoughtful (and ethical) interactions with the local community and how this informs Rasquache’s mission?

This has become very specific to Coapan and it continues to be a process of developing engagement models that deconstruct westernized and institutionalized notions of community work. It has become very important to recognize that our artistic work in Coapan is not the priority in people’s daily lives, so we continue to develop artistic practices that prioritize the community’s needs. Ana Quiroz, one of the artists found a beautiful process of giving English classes to kids while having them help her create a map of the community. She has also been working with local women to embroider on the map and invited other artists to paint on the map as well. Building reciprocity in artist projects has been very important as well, so we have required artists to do service-learning projects with their practices. We also encourage all artists to offer workshops, activities, classes and really think about how processes can involve the local community. Over the last couple of years, we have built a really nice sense of family and collaborative spirit among the artists and the community. By offering these community engagements, we are also learning a lot from them which becomes one of the most valuable resources for artists to work with. Because we are continually learning with the community, it is important for Rasquache to remain fluid and allow for failure to be one of our strongest tools that can capacitate us to move forward. Rasquache doesn’t really have a mission but rather an evolving attitude, culture, and radical thinking that operates outside of the parameters of institutional structuring or westernized notions of having fixated missions.

Have there been specific works created at Rasquache you still feel excited about - that most resonate with Rasquachismo or the experience of working in rural Mexico?

So many beautiful works that artists have created over the past years and some of them are ongoing projects as well. There are too many to talk about of them and it has been beautiful to see artists collectively working towards constructing the potential of Rasquache. In 2019 Liza and Charlie Cunningham built a small wood-fired kiln for ceramic works, it’s intended to be used for future artists as well as community workshops and activities on ceramics. In 2016, I collaborated with Ken Rinaldo using an abandoned truck on-site painting it entirely neon pink. Ken used local electric toys to build drawing robots and used these same toys to build an electric totem pole installed in front of the truck. Karina Monroy installed mosaic works in the back of the truck that she created with local kids. This work has really become quite iconic of launching Rasquache. We’re revisiting this work for upcoming exhibitions! It has also been beautiful to see the many workshops, classes, and community-based projects that artists have developed and offered during their stay. In 2016, all artists were offering classes and workshops so the house would be full of local students or you would see artists working with small groups around town doing poetry, drawing, music, ceramics, etc. Hosting local artists and scholars has also been iconic of Rasquache. We love working with and learning from local initiatives and artists that are already working in the area and who may share endeavors with Rasquache. So it’s really a combination of all these components that artists have worked collectively to build Rasquachismo specific to this rural community.

Cocina De Humo serves as an on-site exhibition space for resident artists, as well as workshops, lectures, performances, and screenings. How would you describe the process of organizing these community events?

This was my mom’s smoke kitchen, kitchens that are used for more traditional mesoamerican foods. In 2016, we decided to make this a fluid space that could allow us to develop community work, artist projects, host speakers, showcase works and build relationships through events. Artists have worked together to install exhibitions and host a closing reception with music and food. More recently, we are really interested in actively seeking local scholars and artists to invite for talks, performances, or collective conversations. Usually, we’re already having conversations in the spring about potential collaborators and guests that we would like to host. This could mean potential collaborators that are media-specific to an artist’s practice or collective interests in learning more about specific themes. In 2019, there was a lot of interest in working with language, specifically Nahuatl, so I reached out to Xochitl Cuauhtemoc who published an amazing book on local indigenous last names. She gave a beautiful presentation in Cocina de Humo and we had dinner afterward to continue conversations. For one of the film screenings, I invited Erik Coyotzin, who made a short documentary on his community’s challenge in losing their Nahuatl native speakers, something very concerning for Coapan as well. Erik works for the Cholollan Radio in the Tlaxcalancingo community neighboring to Coapan, they are strong supporters and allies of Rasquache. We work closely with Leo Herrera, a sociologist in Puebla and he has helped to invite beautiful collaborators and local people to learn from. In 2017, we invited the Tiempero of the Popocatepetl volcano. Don Antonio Analco Sevilla has a deep spiritual connection and relationship with the volcano to mitigate weather for local agriculture and the wellbeing of our communities. In a way, the Cocina de Humo has really helped in amplifying knowledge sharing and relationship building.

How do you navigate your time between teaching at the University of Virginia, your own studio practice, and Rasquache? In what ways do these aspects of your life influence one another?

It has definitely become very blurry which I’ve come to embrace. I don’t necessarily separate these modes of working but instead try to be more in tune with how one informs the other. Rasquache has given me so much to develop pedagogical tools that allow my classes to be more aware of their neighboring communities. These pandemic times have really pushed students to think more in Rasquache modes of working or DIY approaches in making anything and everything useful, making the notion of resourcefulness more malleable. I was at Rasquache every summer hosting artists but also working on my personal projects. I have been working closely with Pedro Cuacuas, one of the best kite makers in Mexico. I have been inviting him to Rasquache to do workshops and build kites together. I started bringing these kites to the U.S and building an ongoing project that proposes to weaponize our culture to resist and protest immigration issues. Stemming from this collaboration we installed a Rasquache exhibition at the Museum of Art & History of Santa Cruz. We did kitemaking workshops, embroidery workshops, and did a community procession with the kites to fly them on the beach. Ann Altstatt, Kyle McKinley, and Karina Monroy were part of this collective work. Most of my endeavors really try to embody this Rasquache spirit of community and collaboration.

Are there other artist-run spaces or initiatives you find inspiring or particularly important right now?

It seems like this pandemic has really amplified the resiliency of artists and collective initiatives.  I remember meeting with the Rasquache artists last summer and talking about how the Black Lives Matter movement was inspiring for us to talk about racism and discrimination in Mexico and in relation to Coapan.  We’re always inspired by other initiatives that are confronting, challenging, dismantling, and actively seeking radical creative practices. We were very honored to be in the Beyond the World’s End exhibition at the Museum of Art & History in Santa Cruz with an amazing group of artists and collectives. It was inspiring to learn from others in that show who are actively addressing the many urgencies in our anthropocene. The Super Futures Haunt Qollective was part of the show among many other inspiring artists.  

I just met Ateri Miyawatl, an indigenous artist from Mexico, she is making amazing work around community and indigeneity.  Beyond her personal incredible work, she also initiated a project called Tetl that resonates so much with Rasquache and the kind of community work that we are doing with creative practices. Her other initiative of Originaria is a traveling ongoing publication of indigenous women writers and offering this platform to amplify our sisters in Mexico who are doing amazing written works. 

Just a few days ago I had the honor of collaborating with amazing artists who are doing incredible works on the U.S-Mexico border and immigration issues in California. Ana Teresa Fernandez organized an exhibition and community event based on her recent project TRUTH which brought together several artists on the Trump winery in Virginia to talk about immigration issues through their creative practices. I had the pleasure of meeting Ronald Rael, mostly known for his teeter-totters installed between the U.S-Mexico border and now working on adobe wood-fired ovens as means of building community and deconstructing borders. Arleene Correa Valencia was also part of this event, she’s an undocumented artist working closely with migrant farmworkers in Napa, California.

Many art organizations have approached the past year as an opportunity to recalibrate or reinvent their programming. How has the pandemic shifted your plans?

We were kind of doing this already since 2018 in stepping back from running a more traditional residency and focusing more on recalibrating our priorities. Now of course we are forced to operate virtually. We were really struggling last year to figure what steps to make in keeping the momentum going and how to continue with our endeavors without being able to travel to Coapan. We did some virtual events, film screenings, and panels in collaboration with the Arts and Culture Center in San Andres Cholula, Puebla. We have been wanting to launch initiatives that allow our work in Mexico to echo in our communities here and also develop projects that can engage the Coapan diasporas here as well. So this pandemic has given us the opportunity to focus on this side of the border and regroup some of the work that we have been making into exhibitions and possibly more virtual programming this summer. We had long-term plans to create mirroring projects here from Mexico so that Rasquache reflects Coapan’s transborderness. So it has been exciting to shift our work to the U.S since most of the artists live here and have been creating works that continue to unpack their experiences from Rasquache.

How do you anticipate Rasquache progressing in the near future?

We have some exciting exhibitions coming up! It seems that this will be the focus of Rasquache this year, to share our works here through exhibitions and community engagements.  We’re finding exciting collaborators and potential.  Our first exhibition will be in May at the River House Arts Gallery in Toledo Ohio, titled Pisando Lodo. This will then travel to Visible Records in September in Charlottesville, Virginia with similar works and plans to remake the pink truck installation from 2016 and community engagements! Visible Records is a new artist-run space with an amazing community of artists and supportive energy for radical programming.  We’re also in conversation with the Ohio State University Urban Arts Space to host an iteration of this exhibition possibly this fall.  

Participating artists in these exhibitions: Yusuf Abdul Lateef, Lydia Moyer, Karina Monroy, Joshua Rodenberg, Jairo Banuelos, Ana Quiroz, Bryan Ortiz, Ken Rinaldo, and Amy Youngs.

To find out more about Rasquache Residency check them out on Instagram or on their website.