The Impact of Cultural Interplay: Talking with Jorge Villarreal

Jorge Villarreal is a multidisciplinary artist with a background in architecture and fine arts, whose main medium is photography. As a first-generation Mexican-American raised in the border region of McAllen, Texas, bicultural heritage is a common topic in his work. Interested in using one culture’s language to investigate and challenge the other, his art explores the tensions of “betweenness,” — being both “of” and “othered.” His work employs color, symbolism, ritual, and iconography to look at personal and political divisions.

In 2018, he held a solo exhibition of his series Sink at La Fototeca Nacional de Cuba. The following year he was awarded a residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien through The Contemporary Berlin Residency Program. These experiences inspired him to found Casa Caché this year, an international artist residency in Havana, Cuba, dedicated to supporting multimedia artists, curators, writers, and researchers. In November, Lo incierto, an abstract video collage that Villarreal co-created with Cecilia Villaverde will be presented during the Venice Biennale in Italy.

In this conversation between two border-raised persons, we talk about Villarreal’s work, the inspiration an artist can find in Cuba, the intersections with Berlin, and the importance of residency programs.

Seyde Garcia (SG): Do you think your work would be different if you hadn’t grown up in a border region?

Jorge Villarreal (JV): Yes, of course. Living in a border region gives you access to the best of both worlds. Being a border artist is not the same as being a Chicano artist. They are two different things. Maybe border art hasn’t been explored as much as Chicano art. The community on the border is amazing. It’s important to bring it to light. 

It isn’t easy to talk about the border if you haven’t experienced living there. Insecurity has changed the places where we grew up, you cannot just go across (to Mexico) in your car at any time to get drinks and hang out in the streets. That was so fun and doesn’t exist anymore. You cannot take your grandmother to your cousin’s quinceañera. Now it’s too risky.

Unfortunately, a lot of the stories that border artists talk about are violence, but it’s a reality. I think it’s good that they’re talking about that, but there’s more than violence. It’s so much deeper. There are also beautiful and unique things in a region like this. People on the border are bilingual. Not only in how we speak but also mentally. We think on both sides constantly and it’s something beautiful and powerful that sometimes mixes and gets lost in Chicano art.

SG: Tell me how Cuba influenced you as an artist.

JV: The first time I went to Cuba was in 2009. I visited yearly. In 2013 I started to work with a partner on a documentary piece called La Lucha, which follows the lives and struggles of four people living in La Habana. It was an amazing experience where I got to know more about the culture and the people of Cuba. I kept traveling and taking pictures of the architecture, the colors, and the textures. 

In 2017 I met Jaqueline Fumero, an incredible fashion designer at a party at the embassy. I told her that I was a photographer and an artist. She didn’t pay much attention. She eventually saw my work and became intrigued by the Sink series. She told me: “We should do an exhibition together.” She wanted to design a dress with the same colors as each sink in my works. 

Unfortunately, she got ill, and the project could not go further. She was disappointed but asked if I would like to present my work at La Fototeca Nacional de Cuba and introduced me to Nelson Ramirez, my partner at the Casa Caché residency. He was the Director of La Fototeca back in the day. The exhibition opened in 2018. Jaqueline could not see it, due to her illness and unfortunately passed away in 2022. 

SG: Can you elaborate on the Sink Series?

JV: I started work on it in 2013. I didn’t rationalize what I was doing until later. Usually, artists develop the concept of the pieces as they’re working on them, but in this series, I realized many years later that it was part of grief. I had experienced an important loss at that time. 

I photographed sinks that I filled with milk and put in flowers and different elements, as part of a ritual or an altar. The milk represents nourishment and the flowers are presented as an oblation. The sinks are a manifestation of purification, the place where people wash their hands. I photographed sinks in Texas, France, and Mexico.

SG: How did you come up with the idea for the Casa Caché residency? 

JV: I was working on my exhibit in Cuba and Nelson and I started to talk about this idea of a residency. We talked about the importance of bringing artists, writers, and curators to Havana, so they can experience what it is like to live there, but also, to tell the stories of the Cuban people outside the island. There are many talented artists and projects and this residency could help their work get known in other places. It’s not that easy to experience Cuba if you haven’t never been there before, or if you are not accompanied by someone who has been there before.

Then the pandemic happened and all plans stopped. By 2022, we started to talk again about the idea. In April this year, we launched the project with a fundraising party in Southtown San Antonio, with the coordination of Roberta Zertuche, who is an important part of the development of the project. 

 SG: Tell me about the artists in this first cohort: Corina Gertz, Kris Scholz, and Cecilia Villaverde.

JV: Corina Gertz is an artist who travels around the world photographing the typical gowns in a certain country or culture. She specializes in capturing the elements of the garments such as the fabric, ribbons, and details. She has always wanted to travel to Cuba to continue her exploration. During her residency, she got to work with dancers from La Tropicana and capture the gowns of the women who practice the rituals of Santeria.

Kris Scholz is an industrial architectural photographer, he studied with Bernd Becher and Hilla Wobeser, from the Bauhaus School. His work focuses mostly on architectural photography. He worked with a 1930s camera to capture buildings in La Habana. He brought photo paper and used it as film and created a dark room for printing and processing in Casa Caché.

Cecilia Villaverde is a visual artist and a filmmaker. She documents stories of the LGBTQ+ community. In 2018, she made a documentary film about the queer artist and musician La Bruja de Texcoco, which got her a nomination for the Ariel Awards — the equivalent of the Academy Awards in Latin America. Cecilia followed and documented the life of the LGBTQ+ community in La Habana. During her time in Cuba, she was invited to present the documentary at Centro Nacional de Educación Sexual en Cuba (CENESEX) founded by the politician and sexologist Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban ex-president Raul Castro. La Bruja de Texcoco traveled to Havana to play during the presentation of the documentary. Cecilia and Bruja also presented at Fabrica de Arte Cubano (FAC) during their residency at Casa Caché.

 SG: What’s next for Casa Caché Residency?

JV: We are preparing to bring a second cohort this year to La Habana and stage the next phase of the residency in Merida, Yucatán. Merida is a place that has fascinated me ever since I was a child. My father worked there and we had a ranch in Valladolid. I have beautiful memories from that place that have inspired me: the art, the colors, the stories of the Mayan rituals and sacrifices. As a child, those scared me but at the same time, I felt attracted to them.

We are partnering with Mario Torre, from Galería Secreta. We are going to launch it, there are no dates yet, but it is in the process of being launched by 2025. The idea is that this year the residency will occur twice in Cuba, next year it will occur twice in Yucatan. In 2026, I want to launch both. My idea is to have the two Casa Caché residencies, in Yucatán and Havana at the same time. They would be already operating on their own.

We will select a second group to do a residency in Havana this fall. There are also plans for a second fundraising event in New York City in October and an exhibition with the works of the artists of both cohorts in 2025.

SG: Do you find commonalities among the places in which you grew up and those that have been significant for you: Berlin, Havana, and México?

JV: When I began discussing the idea of the Casa Caché residency with Nelson Ramirez, I was in Berlin during my own residency. Nelson, who was born in Berlin due to his parents’ diplomatic work, shares a personal connection with the city. This common ground forms a significant part of our friendship, connection, and the entire Casa Caché project.

Berlin is a city historically divided by a violent wall, symbolizing separation and conflict. Similarly, Cuba suffers from a divide, not through a physical barrier but through an ideological one – the embargo. This imaginary wall, rooted in outdated beliefs from the 1960s, severely impacts the country. It is crucial and humanitarian to assist them as much as possible, as their situation is reminiscent of living in the past when the Berlin Wall still stood.

The US-Mexico border is where I grew up; it is the foundation of who I am today. The ability to cross freely between both countries allowed me to immerse myself in two distinct cultures, languages, and identities. This unique experience profoundly influences my current work as an artist. It instilled in me a deep appreciation for the fluidity of identity and the richness that comes from cultural exchange.

This background perhaps explains my attraction to countries that have historically lacked such freedoms or continue to face similar restrictions today. My art seeks to explore and reflect on these contrasts, highlighting the impact of freedom of movement and cultural interplay on personal and collective identities.