Barro Mestiza is the first solo exhibition of the Nicaraguan artist ELYLA. The work shown in this catalog was produced during their artistic residency as an Artist Protection Fund Fellow (APF-IIE) at Bucknell University, with support from the Ekard Artist Residency, the Samek Art Museum and the Department of Art and Art History.

This show calls on us to reflect that hidden in our memories, lies the joy of being a kind disruption to that which holds everything. Just as Elyla calls it, Clave cochona is about more than a bet on a fictitious reality, it is about the possibility of a true cochón present. Just as Arundhati Roy once noted, “other worlds are not just possible, they are indeed on the way, and we can already hear them breathing.

Maya Juracán

Barro Mestiza arises from the urgency of reviewing the homogenizing narrative of mestizaje in the face of a more equitable horizon with LGBTIQ+ realities to the colonial folkloric norm of being Nicaraguan. Transfeminist art, utopia cochona, and social justice are the recurring themes throughout the pieces shown and emanating from the body of the artist. This show provides space to new questionings of the construction of mestizo identity in the Nicaraguan pacific.

Espacio Disponible Art Gallery