Juan Escobedo is a kind of characters that you must know to know the rhythm of this metropolis. Sociable and cultured, sporting his trademark hat, he retains one foot in Los Angeles and the opposite on the south aspect of the border. His coronary heart is split between these two loves.
He was born in San Diego, however has robust roots within the state of Jalisco, the place, by the way in which, his fondness for hats comes from. His ardour for hats helped make him well-known right here, after the Los Angeles County Division of Arts and Tradition chosen his “El Sombrero de Miguel López” for a gaggle present that was exhibited in downtown L.A.’s Gloria Molina Grand Park from March 11 to 18.
The picture was taken in 2018 and is a self-portrait of Escobedo sporting the sombrero of his grandfather, Miguel López.
“He was from Jalisco and he got here to america when guests paid 50 cents to cross the border,” Escobedo says. “He didn’t discover out that he was a part of the Bracero Program till years later.”
“My grandfather at all times wore a hat when using a horse or doing farm work. The hat was an extension of who he was and the land he cared for. I’m honored to have been chosen out of so many nice artists to point out my work on this exhibition. It’s like bringing it to life on the streets of this metropolis.”
Escobedo is aware of very properly that his house is right here in California, however he additionally listens to the voices of his ancestors who consistently beckon him to expertise the traditions, flavors and day by day lifetime of the cities of Mexico.
That’s the reason he feels as a lot at house in a market in Boyle Heights, speaking to younger individuals who need to be filmmakers, as he does outdoors a church in Oaxaca, or in a city in Jalisco, having fun with the folks, feeling sheltered, however on the identical time a foreigner.
“How many people haven’t felt that sensation upon returning to the land of origin?” asks Escobedo with a smile.
The artist Pinchi Michi in Zaachila, Oaxaca, in 2022.
(Juan Escobedo)
Edson Caballero Trujillo in Xaaga, Oaxaca, 2022.
(Juan Escobedo)
Escobedo’s penchant for shadows and angles comes from afar, particularly from Huejuquilla, Jalisco, the place he was raised by his grandparents.
“Between canine, cats, chickens and pigs, the home was saved in everlasting semi-darkness,” he recollects. “The candles illuminated the pictures of the Virgin that my grandmother had, and the hats had been a part of the furnishings in the home…. In Huejuquilla, in Los Altos de Jalisco, there was no electrical energy, solely oil lamps, and I bear in mind that there have been at all times hats, virgins and the excellent picture of San Martín de Porres, the saint of animals.”
In that chiaroscuro atmosphere, harking back to the landscapes and pictures of the Mexican author Juan Rulfo, Escobedo developed his sensitivity towards photographs, and the necessity to discover his roots.
Edson Caballero Trujillo, one of many Aztec dancers who repeatedly carry out on the Zócalo in Mexico.
(Juan Escobedo)
From these childhood reminiscences comes his have to experiment with shadows, lighting and silhouettes. And one of the simplest ways to precise that want was by way of images, which he started to observe at 15 years outdated when he studied at La Jolla Excessive Faculty.
By way of observe, he got here to understood that the digital camera was not solely a instrument, but in addition a automobile to lift consciousness about totally different social points. Thus was born “Trash and Tears,” the sequence of pictures that Escobedo started in 2017 during which he depicted actors and fashions within the midst of marginalized city landscapes.
On this sequence Escobedo explores the issues of the buildup of objects, psychological well being, poverty, graffiti and drug habit by way of imagery of the garbage-strewn areas the place unhoused folks typically are obliged to make their houses. “Trash and Tears” is a mirrored image on the ambiguous and precarious worth of objects.
“What for some is rubbish, for others is a treasure,” says Escobedo.
Kisha Smith within the sequence “Trash and Tears,” 2018.
(Juan Escobedo)
Alvaro Daniel Marquez within the sequence “Trash and Tears” 2018.
(Juan Escobedo)
Though he feels he belongs to Los Angeles, the place he arrived in 1991 to review theater with an emphasis in directing and images at Cal State L.A and East L.A Faculty, Escobedo has devoted a very good a part of his profession as a photographer to recovering his Mexican id, each in Jalisco and in Oaxaca, the place he has taken pictures which have earned him nice private satisfaction.
Juan Escobedo in Mexico Metropolis’s Centro Histórico.
(Darci Strother)
Though his foray into images dates again to his pupil days, he discovered his different vocation by likelihood.
In 2007, a good friend requested him to recite a poem entitled “I’m a soldier in Iraq,” during which he narrates how veterans are handled as soon as they return to america, the place too typically too lots of them are forgotten and even despised by the remainder of society.
After studying the poem, he illustrated it with photographs and despatched the video to the Cannes Movie Competition, the place it received the award for greatest brief movie underneath 4 minutes from the Swiss Division of Arts and Tradition. It additionally earned the Cinema of Conscience Award from the Sonoma Movie Competition in 2008.
“Once I bought again to Los Angeles, I assumed we must always have a competition like this in East Los Angeles,” says Escobedo.
So he set to work. With the help of former L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina and Guadalupe Bojórquez of the Casa Cultural, he organized the East LA Movie Competition, which has been going down since 2008, and the place the works of quite a few native artists who’re attempting to face out on this aggressive business come collectively.
Hand in hand with the competition, the East LA Society of Movie and Arts, higher referred to as TELASOFA, was born, a non-profit group whose goal is to supply younger folks from marginalized areas of Los Angeles the chance to be taught the artwork of cinema.
As a filmmaker Escobedo has constructed a repute for himself. He was nominated for the celebrated Premio Imagen (2009), which acknowledges constructive portrayals of Latinos in movie and tv. His different works as a director embody “Ruby,” a film for Present TV.
In 2018, “Marisol,” a brief movie addressing the horrors of home violence and little one abuse, received greatest dramatic brief movie on the Hollywood Reel Unbiased Movie Competition and greatest actress awards for each lead actresses, Siennah Ortiz and Toni Torres, on the Ladies’s Unbiased Movie Competition and on the Playhouse West Movie Competition. In Could 2022 this brief movie received greatest director, greatest little one actress and greatest brief movie on the San Diego Film Awards in Balboa Park.
The script for “Marisol” additionally grew to become a part of the everlasting assortment of the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences, the place it’s accessible to researchers.
However Escobedo has a protracted technique to go. Amongst his future tasks is a movie that addresses the problem of the Black inhabitants of Mexico. “It is part of society that has been forgotten, marginalized and for hundreds of years, tried to erase,” says Escobedo, who will quickly journey to the states of Oaxaca and Guerrero to recuperate that a part of Mexico’s historical past.
“If we neglect who we’re, we’re misplaced,” he says.
Juan Escobedo within the metropolis of Oaxaca, 2019.
(Juan Ponce)
