This collaboration is part of a larger project that surrounds a public art sculpture to commemorate
the activism of the Chicano Student Movement, during which Los Seis, as they became known,
were killed in two separate and unexplained car bombs on May 27 and 29, 1974. These traumatic
events happened on two sites that bookend CU Boulder campus: Chautauqua Park, and 28th
Street and Canyon Boulevard. Resting between them is Temporary Building 1, the building these
students were occupying with fellow activists in demand for continued growth and autonomy of
Educational Opportunity Programs at CU Boulder. A sculpture commemorating the students will
be installed in July 2019 outside of Temporary Building 1.
Jasmine Baetz- CV Gladys Preciado- CV Lupe Avalos- CV
Project Description
There are two main archives involved in this project. The first is traditional: the
documents at Special Collections, Archives & Preservation at Norlin Library that have been
pored over in service of contextualizing this sculpture. This archive has not been neutral in any
sense; we have learned from its gaps as much as we’ve learned from its holdings. The second
archive is expansive: the public space of the CU Boulder campus, once activated and subverted
by the student activism of the 1970s, and perceived by many today as a beautiful, neutral surface
over which students pass. This campus does not encourage pause.
This project encourages us to pause and consider the campus as an index of power. The
sculpture for Los Seis will disrupt the visual hegemony of CU Boulder, potentially shifting the
center of power on campus, and impacting the lives of people who exist here by introducing
difference and complexity into our space and narrative. Representation of the student activists
who sacrificed their lives in the fight to make our campus more equitable is needed, and can
refigure our campus-as-archive. We can look to George Norlin’s understanding of the campus as
a body, an outward frame that serves the minds and spirits “of all who come into and go forth
from its halls.” We are intervening in this archive and pushing this outward frame, in hopes that
it will tangibly change the experience of walking, living, and thinking on these campus grounds.
All of this feeds our content and concept for the Archives Transformed residency. To
complement and extend the physical monument of the Temporary Building 1 sculpture, we will
use the residency to create a projected image piece that sources, re-sources, frames, and
re-frames the aforementioned traditional and expansive archives. Projecting relevant images of
the campus, past cultural production, research, context, and content of the story of Los Seis will
create an ephemeral counter-monument to their lives and to the experience of remembering
them. In rethinking monumentality, we can disrupt the “traditional” use of monuments, often
tethered to nationalism and exclusionary rhetoric. With reiterative projection we redirect the
tradition of monuments, giving voice to minority groups rather than privileging the visual
language of dominant forces.
The two in-residence collaborators are Art History graduate student Gladys Preciado and
Ceramics graduate student Jasmine Baetz. Both are women of color who are concerned about the
politics of representation on CU Boulder campus. Gladys brings a deep art historical knowledge
and ability to contextualize visual culture, in particular, monuments. Her fluency in English and
Spanish allows her to communicate across cultures. Jasmine brings a background in both
Religious Studies and Studio Art, and she is interested in working with communities to
interrogate their lived space, representative objects, and assumptions. She's also interested in
considering new frameworks, tools and materials with which communities can build and think in
different ways. The two have worked together as Graduate Teacher Program leads for their
department, and to reinstate the Graduate Students of Color Collective which provides a safe
community space of students of color on campus.
The additional collaborators are Celina Tovar, an undergraduate student in Fine Arts and
Psychology, Lupe Avalos, who graduated last year with a Bachelor of Science in Technology,
Arts, and Media, and Lucero Aguirre who recently graduated with an MFA in Ceramics. Celina
and Lupe will be planning and fabricating of the sculpture along with Jasmine, and Lucero’s
recent MFA Thesis installation, “Mata Sueños / Dream Killer,” uses projection as a complex
mode of communication of personal and public archives. Together we are invested in the history
of Los Seis, and creating alternatively-researched cultural production around them.
