Land—Featuring Quetzal Flores and Martha Gonzalez
A Collective Songwriting and Art Workshop on Land and Power

Live via Zoom
 
Admission is free. 

RSVP 

This workshop will be offered in Spanish and English.

DESCRIPTION:
Join GRAMMY-winning musicians Quetzal Flores and Martha Gonzalez, visual artist and USC graduate student Yesenia Hunter, and East L.A. poet Aeden Hunter for a dynamic evening of creating art, building community, and exploring our relationships to land and place.

Flores and Gonzalez of the acclaimed East L.A. rock group Quetzal will discuss themes of Self, Other, History, and Futures and how they relate to the land that we share. These themes will anchor three vibrant creative breakout sessions in which participants will forge community as they collectively create music and art that reflect our relationships to land and place. Participants will be able to choose from the following sessions:

- Collective songwriting with Quetzal Flores and Martha Gonzales, drawing on their work with Community Power Collective
- Linework and collective collage design with Yesenia Hunter
- Collective songwriting and poetry for teens and young adults with Aeden Hunter

The event will conclude with time for participants to share their work and experiences.

Open to all skill levels and attendees can participate at their own comfort level. No materials are required.

“Land—Featuring Quetzal Flores and Martha Gonzalez” is part of Common Ground, an original series of events that showcases Los Angeles artists and organizers who are deconstructing and reimagining America’s relationship to itself—the interplay between the nation and the actual landmass on which it depends.

Bios:
Growing up in grassroots movements as the son of labor-union organizers, Quetzal Flores inherited an undying accountability to community struggles. From land struggles with South Central farmers, immigration reform, supermarket workers union strike, and the indigenous Zapatista struggle, to the everyday community struggles in East Los Angeles, he has been active with music in hand. Since 1993, he has worked as the musical director for the East Los Angeles–based rock group Quetzal.

Martha Gonzalez is a Chicana artivista, musician, feminist music theorist, and professor in the Intercollegiate Department of Chicana/o Latina/o Studies at Scripps/Claremont College. A Fulbright, Ford, and Woodrow Wilson fellow, her academic interests have been fueled by her own musicianship as a singer, songwriter, and percussionist for the Grammy Award–winning band Quetzal.

Aeden Hunter is a poet and multifaceted artist working in music and arts production. His poetic life started in youth poetry classes in East Los Angeles where he learned to color the textures of his life with words. Inspired by his family and community to create a vibrant life around him, Hunter’s visual art speaks to dreams and metaphors, and often begins with improvisation. His music is inspired by love and self-love and reflects his desire to lift spirits and inspire connections.

Yesenia Hunter is a graduate student at USC working on her PhD in history. She is interested in how immigrant and migrant individuals use material practices to evoke memory and make place. Her research focuses on history of the West, migration and movement in the Pacific Northwest, memory studies, and questions of space and place making. Her current public history project, Fingerprints and Landscapes, explores place making through stories and art.

Related events:
Water—An Activist Dance Theatre Project by CONTRA-TIEMPO
Monday, April 12, at 6 p.m.
For more info and to RSVP, click here. 

Sanctuary—Featuring San Cha, Bay Davis, and the Creators of Gentefied
Thursday, April 29, at 7 p.m.
For more info and to RSVP, click here.

Presented by Arts in Action, part of USC Visions and Voices: The Arts and Humanities Initiative.