CompArte III: The Emiliano Zapata Community Festival

Three paintings by Yadira Cazares, themed around immigration, are returning to the gallery after being exhibited at CompArte III: The Emiliano Zapata Community Festival, hosted by the Chiapas Support Committee (CSC), in solidarity with the Zapatistas and Indigenous people’s struggles for self-determination, autonomy and land justice in Mexico and the U.S.

This year’s gathering was called “La primavera de los pueblos | The springtime of the peoples,” to celebrate our struggles and movements for justice, human rights and equality for all with music, art, poetry and community speakers

CompArte was first convened by the Zapatistas in July 2016 to showcase anti-capitalist culture-makers in the Zapatista and other justice movements. CompArte became a space to express dream-work on deep justice and political struggles through painting, dance, music, poetry, hip-hop, sculpture, film, video, photography and the arts rooted in Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities fighting for humanity and against the hydra-head of capitalism: neoliberalism, racism, genocide, war, and dispossession.

The Zapatistas invited communities in Mexico and around the world to hold CompArte gatherings to bring together artists, musicians, poets, painters, videographers and community-based organizers and activists struggling for justice and human rights, in solidarity with Indigenous autonomy and self-determination, and to highlight the cultural and artistic achievements of our anti-capitalist/pro-humanity movements.

The Chiapas Support Committee joined the call and held a parallel and first CompArte in July 2016 in Oakland. The CSC is an organizational adherent to the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, a statement which defines principles for international solidarity with the Zapatista Movement of Indigenous Peoples in Chiapas, Mexico. For more information and to support the CSC, visit their website: https://chiapas-support.org/