FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jess Cherofsky // 617.441.5400 x 15 // jess@cs.org
Intricate Indigenous Crafters from Highlands of Ukraine and Mexico Travel to Boston
Forty-third annual Cultural Survival Bazaar Season Features over Fifty Artists
CAMBRIDGE, MA, November 2, 2018 -
Cultural Survival’s annual art and culture festivals are back in time for your holiday shopping on December 15-16, and on December 21-23, 2018. These free admission events will feature local and international artists, as well as exquisite handmade crafts, artwork, clothing, jewelry, rugs, and accessories made and sold by Indigenous craftspeople. Items sold at Cultural Survival Bazaars support the livelihoods of Indigenous artists, along with many community projects worldwide.
Featured at this year’s Bazaars are Roberto Mejia Muñoz, Patricia Garcia, and Ganna Nepyivoda.
Roberto Mejía Muñoz and Patricia García are mestizo artists from Mexico. Their family have been working and selling their crafts worldwide for about 20 years. Their crafts, rooted in their ancestral Nahuatl culture, feature a natural fiber known as popotillo. This is a straw-like grass that is collected from the high parts of a volcano or the hills of the Valle de Mexico. They dye it various colors and secure it using a natural glue made from a tree resin and beeswax. These skills and traditions have been taught for over three generations. Roberto, Patricia, and their family also instruct their community on how to create rare crafts using popotillo. At the Cultural Survival Bazaars, Roberto and Patricia represent Yolopopotli, a family business that includes four families whose members participate in the creation of the art. What makes their work so unique is that they each reflect their own experiences, visions, and inspiration in their work because everyone sees the world and life differently.
Ganna Nepyivoda is a Ukrainian pysanka artist, as well as a professor at the M. Boichuk Institute of Decorative and Applied Arts in Kyiv, Ukraine. Pysankas are eggs dyed and designed using a batik technique with a candle and wax. She represents the culture of the Hutsul people, an ethno-cultural group of Ukrainian highlanders. Ganna started learning traditional embroidery and carpet weaving at a young age from her mother. She later earned degrees from the Folk Arts College in Kosiv and the Institute of Applied Arts in Lviv. There she obtained her skills in the craft of leatherwork and pysanka (painted eggs), and has since managed to revive the almost-disappeared, rare pysanka designs of her local community. Ganna considers it her mission to preserve and revive ancient traditions in her own works.
Cultural Survival, a nonprofit organization based in Cambridge, MA, will hold its annual Indigenous arts festivals. Cultural Survival Bazaars are a series of cultural festivals that provide Indigenous artists, cooperatives, and their representatives from around the world the chance to sell their work directly to the US public.
Since 1975, Cultural Survival Bazaars have provided a market for thousands of Indigenous artists and cooperatives spanning six continents and over 60 countries. The Bazaars are a unique and rare multicultural experience. Attendees will meet visiting artisans, view craft-making demonstrations, learn about Cultural Survival’s non-profit work worldwide, as well as purchase handmade jewelry, art, crafts, clothing, scarves, décor, and much more, supporting the livelihoods of artisans and many community projects worldwide.
Join us in this multicultural event that goes beyond fair trade with a true understanding of sourcing, as well as equitable and sustainable compensation!
Event Information:
December 15-16
Cambridge Rindge and Latin School
459 Broadway
Cambridge, MA 02138
Saturday and Sunday 10am - 6pm
Free admission
Free parking
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December 21-23
Prudential Center
Belvidere and Huntington Arcades
800 Boylston Street
Boston, MA 02199
Enter at the corner of Huntington Ave. and Belvidere St. (Elevator and escalator access at this entrance)
Friday and Saturday 10am-10pm
Sunday 10am-8pm
Free admission
2 minutes from Prudential Station on “E” line on Green line
Across the street from 39 bus stop
10-minute walk from Mass Ave. stop on the Orange Line
Several paid parking garages in the area
