We artists are like sponges who absorb the sounds, hopes, tastes and fears of our time by creating spaces, situations, objects or sensations that allow us to engage in conversation, or simply leave a mark, about what’s surrounding us.
I believe that many of us are fighters and survivors, not victims, which allow us and enable us to face the challenges of the future. I feel that it is a responsibility to serve as an example; to transmit strength to anyone who is about to give up; and to demonstrate to those who told us that we were not good enough, that indeed we are.
–Gema Álava
Álava was appointed in 2012 Cultural Adviser to the World Council of Peoples for the United Nations (WCPUN), which recognizes the role of artists in advancing the UN’s goals and provides alternative think spaces to enable visionary people to connect and collaborate.
As a Cultural Adviser, Álava directs interactive art projects and participates in round tables discussing her work, which reflects UN’s goals. Her socially engage art projects allow visitors and audiences to stop briefly and think about how art can make changes in relation to social justice and protection of the environment.
Álava has directed interactive projects for the International Commemoration of the Eradication of Poverty at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, co-organized by ATD Fourth World, the NGO Sub-Committee for the Eradication of Poverty.
In 2016, Gema Álava was invited to participate in the Festival “Celebrations Unite the World” –an initiative promoted from the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities (MOPD) of the government of New York– as a cultural and educational reference, because of her interactive art projects inspired by and developed with the support of people with disabilities.
In 2017, Álava was selected simultaneously to participate in two pilot Inaugural Programs: “The Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program: Social Practice” by New York Foundation for the Arts; and “The Art & Disability Institute” by Art Beyond Sight in New York City.
To see the evolution of Álava’s work since 2002, go to WORKS.
