
Margarita Cabrera Mexican, b. 1973
Space in Between: Agave (Laura Gutierrez), 2016
Border patrol uniform fabric, copper wire, pvc pipe, foam, thread, and terra cotta pot
38 x 25 x 14"
96.5 x 63.5 x 35.5 cm
96.5 x 63.5 x 35.5 cm
The Space in Between Series is an ongoing exploration of the defining economic and cultural relationships between the United States and Mexico and utilizes aesthetic platforms to increase socio-political consciousness....
The Space in Between Series is an ongoing exploration of the defining economic and cultural relationships between the United States and Mexico and utilizes aesthetic platforms to increase socio-political consciousness. The title is inspired by the word Nepantla, a Nahuatl Aztec term meaning "the space in the middle" where marginalized cultures create strategies for survival. late scholar, activist, and author of Borderlands/ La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldua states that Nepantla refers to the process of creating alternative spaces to live, function, or create, particularly in the borderlands. An important part of Cabrera's work is community-based. Space in Between lends itself to a collaborative nature. The first community workshop of Space in Between took place in 2009 at Box 13 in a former Singer sewing machine showroom in Houston's East End, an urban home to a large and longstanding Spanish-speaking immigrant community. Participants in the workshop, themselves immigrants to the United States from Mexico and Central America, produced numerous sculptural replicas of desert plants indigenous to the Southwestern United States.