[CHICAGO, ILLINOIS — May 27, 2024] This Memorial Day, the DEMIL Art Fund is excited to announce the Spring 2024 cohort of artists to be supported by the fund.
The newest cohort are veterans Eric J. Garcia, Maura García (non-enrolled Cherokee/Mattamuskeet) and Carlos Sirah.
Eric J. Garcia, known for his political satire cartoon, El Machete Illustrated, plans to continue with an ongoing series around aliens and space invaders. In this project he examines the US immigration system, and explorers like Christopher Columbus and Hernán Cortés, and mixes the idea of colonial/historical aliens with popular science fiction imagery.
“Like many generations of black and brown people have done before, I enlisted in the occupying military with the hopes of opportunities within the empire,” Garcia said. “After awakening from the ‘American Dream,’ I now use my privilege to deconstruct our country's false narratives.”
Space Ship by Eric J. Garcia, 16’ x 20’ telephone pole, sails, rope and digital projections. At the Roswell Artist-in-Residence compound. Photos by Tonee Harbert.
Maura García is an independent dancer and performer. She will use DEMIL support to sustain her dance practice by renting out a rehearsal space and continue conceptualizing ideas.
"My work deals with justice through the practice of telling untold, underrepresented, hidden and/or suppressed stories. Allowing silenced narratives to be danced aloud is a way to counteract the effects of oppressive regimes and policies,” García said.
Highlights from Maura García's residency at the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, 2019. Photo courtesy of Crystal Bridges Museum of Art.
Carlos Sirah plans to use the DEMIL Funds to continue his focus on the idea that veterans predate the notion of the U.S. or American state, and that they have histories of revolt and resistance. Carlos will expand his practice and research the figure of the veteran across within the context of anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism.
“This perspective challenges the common narrative that frames veterans as a unique category of citizens, inherently tied to the nation-state they served,” Sirah said. “Instead, I see veterans as figures deeply intertwined with the broader fabric of society, integral to its function or dysfunction, its liberation or its ultimate capture.”
Carlos Sirah reading his work during the Veteran Art Summit: Surviving the Long Wars at the Newberry Library, 2023. Photo credit Daniel King.
About one year ago, DEMIL Art Fund supported theVeteran Art Summit: SURVIVING THE LONG WARS hosted in Chicago in March 2023. The STLW explored the multiple, overlapping histories that shape our understanding of warfare, as well as alternative visions of peace, healing, and justice generated by diverse communities impacted by war. The DEMIL Art Fund paused giving individual artist awards in 2023 to focus on the STLW and a related publication scheduled to be released in November 2024.