In the Making: A Story of Dreamers in Transit

The L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center’s Advocate & Gochis Galleries  celebrate the opening of In the Making: A Story of Dreamers in Transit, an exhibition of original paintings by visual artist Francisco Cabas and collages created in collaboration with youth in the Gay & Lesbian Center’s Transition Living Program. An opening reception will take place on Thursday, July 12, 7-9 p.m. at the Center’s Village at Ed Gould Plaza. The exhibit will run through August 17.

 

 

Francisco Cabas’s work proposes visual and conceptual models within narratives of sexual violence, homophobia, and regeneration. Through an intricate “highway system” of roots and veins, Cabas creates a visual metaphor where the emptiness caused by emotional devastation and social alienation is transformed into a quest for individual and community empowerment. 

 

 

As part of his commitment to public service, Cabas worked for the last two years with young people in the Transition Living Program at the Gay & Lesbian Center to create artworks that engage with the experience of transit and the essential longings of the human heart. The resulting collages are snapshots of untold stories created with original images, found objects, news clippings and documentary photography taken during weekly art sessions held at the shelter. 

 

 

The collages in In the Making  reject a defined conceptual theme in favor of unrestricted creative expression. The work was developed in collaboration with youths who are not professional artists, but who embody the human experience in a society where homophobia still impregnates cultural, social and political institutions. Each piece within the collage becomes an individual mark, an arbitrary moment in the life of a young person. Cabas took on the role of the framer, who facilitating a visual and conceptual conversation between all the artists and elements at play in In the Making: a Story of Dreamers in Transit.