Co-founders of Slangauge, Karla Diaz and Mario Ybarra Jr. celebrate at We Run Things, Things Don’t Run We opening reception at Angels Gate Cultural Center, Oct. 22.
Slanguage Art Studio celebrates its 20th anniversary.
It was a great family reunion at Angels Gate on Oct. 22. Self-described de facto art school and artist-run space Slanguage Studio, founded by Karla Diaz and Mario Ybarra Jr., celebrated its 20th anniversary among a robust gathering of alumni, friends, family and art lovers.
The Angels Gate campus, buzzing with people and conversations, transformed into a chill Saturday afternoon block party, with tacos, spirits and beverages, a folklórico dancer, a DJ and many warm embraces. Ybarra even agreed, hesitatingly, to bring his “Slanguage table,” to the event, a beloved, round, wooden gathering spot where the Slanguage crew shares discourse. The table was covered with memorable photos of the Slanguage community.
Co-curated by Gloria Gem Sanchez and Jynx Prado, who are proteges of Slanguage, this group exhibition pays homage to the de facto art school and artist-run space. The curators described the exhibition as a visual overview of Slanguage pedagogy, each artist shares their unique approach to creating through intent, content, context, production, distribution and documentation. Works in We Run Things, Things Don’t Run We convey an astute grasp of social issues, a sense of humor and spark curiosity.
In particular, Notice To Appear: Defendants Copy by Amoldo Vargas, contains silver gelatin photographic prints of youth from disadvantaged neighborhoods. Next to each child are copies of citations they received — to appear in court no less — for trivial infractions like a broken headlight on a bicycle, truant in public with no adult present during school hours, fighting on school grounds, tobacco possession and running in front of a vehicle — unnecessarily stopping traffic. It lays bare how these communities are hyper-policed and their youthful residents are manipulated into the court system.
Alonso Garzon’s Bass Face Natal: Yamaha bass guitar hardware, wood, leather, nylon thread, plastic, acrylic paint and cotton, at first looks like a dystopic headpiece. Examining further, its hardware of strings, clamps and hoses and its human/animal appearance, with a leather mask and horns on its head built from the bass’ lacquered wood, playfully conveys a utilitarian tool of gadgets with multiple uses for its wearer to employ in such a world, even ours.
In talking about this piece Ybarra explains that Garzon participates in “Wasteland Weekend” with a group that travels to the desert and plays a Mad Max role-playing game.
“But if [Garzon] hears me say role-playing, he might get mad because he says, ‘It’s not a costume. It’s our culture,’” said Ybarra of his closest friend.
Other works represent artists’ surroundings such as Amitis Motevalli’s Wilmington Dreaming, watercolor on paper. The painting is part of the Bikini Manifesto series that was shown at Slanguage Studio in 2006, at the original location on Avalon. Two pink platforms and fishnets-clad female figures wear g-string bikinis; each one stands next to a pole, with billowing smoke clouds rising from them. The minimal painting speaks directly to perceptions of the severe limitations on how one can survive and make a living in a community run by fossil fuel corporations. Motevalli visited Dreams strip club, located in Wilmington, close to the port. The club caters to longshore dockworkers and refinery workers. She witnessed many layers of labor and exploitation as well as camaraderie. She said the women offset the excessive labor inequities for men. This left Montevalli wondering, who offsets the inequities for the women – and if that offset is necessary.
See the Slanguage Virtual Exhibition here: http://angelsgateart.org/3D/we-run-things-things-dont-run-we/
Considering all that Slanguage Studio has meant to its students and community alike, the event could not have been anything less than a familial celebration. Just as parents raise their children, and come to proudly witness their arrival to adulthood, Diaz and Ybarra continue to experience this same threshold with their apprentices, many of whom carry on the legacy of Slanguage.
Original Slanguage location on Avalon Blvd. in Wilmington 
The Legacy and its Inheritors
Slanguage rose up in a time when there was no art scene to speak of in Wilmington. Ybarra noted all he saw growing up were Chicano murals, graffiti, and things you would go see in alleys, like punk rock bands in San Pedro and hip-hop artists in Wilmington. There were no cultural centers. Ybarra recalls being a recent high school graduate and junior high kids would go to his house to find him. They would copy into their sketchbooks graffiti he threw on a wall somewhere and then show him because there was nowhere else to discuss or show art in their neighborhood.
Throughout the last 20 years in Wilmington, Ybarra noted, union jobs from the port have offered financial stability in the community. It allowed the children of those workers to think about attending college or even about going into art as a career. This is where a parallel between the art studio and the community happened.
At this time, Slanguage was organically growing, not only by becoming a de facto school, but also a cherished resource for the community. Slanguage connected to its first generation of students through facilitating workshops for teenagers. The second generation of students was more college bound.
Many alumni have given back to the art space and neighborhood. Slanguage artists have gone on to become involved in several different initiatives in Wilmington, like the Avalon Arts Council, which runs an art walk in the city. In fact, several Slanguage artists that grew up in the studio came back to Wilmington as part of the Getty 25 Celebrates Wilmington this past July.
Students who initially came to the studio were predominantly male. Diaz stressed that she made it her goal to purposefully reach out to young women and to let them know that they could feel safe there because there was no cultural curriculum but for maybe one teacher at the high school, and no effort for a mentorship program. It was very important to her to make that happen. Diaz wanted more diversity, more women to be included and more LGBTQ+ kids to feel safe and be part of Slanguage’s conversation on how to grow.
Ybarra noted that at the time of the 2008 financial crisis, college graduates were returning to Wilmington unable to find employment. Slanguage was able to “incubate them.” During that time a big shift occurred in the people that they were working with. It became urgent to work with different demographics in terms of age groups and people.
Ybarra and Diaz said that one of the studio’s biggest challenges was when large well-funded organizations would come to town, see what Slanguage was doing, then steal their youth audience and even their ideas. Slanguage was always open to exchanging ideas with outside institutions and artists. But in this new era, the founders learned they had to step back and be less willing to share.
As Slanguage grew through Ybarra’s and Diaz’s work and personal incomes, they watched the city come in, with organizations from elsewhere, claiming they were there to help the community. Slanguage is not a nonprofit, so when these organizations arrived, and more of the community was educated, Ybarra had to tell them that they did not need missionaries. They could do their own work, and facilitate their own growth and their own projects. Younger people were coming home with degrees and they wanted to give back to the community.
Diaz noted they were not shutting these organizations down but were choosing to act with reciprocity. The work that Slanguage was doing in Wilmington was an act of sharing and exchanging rather than taking, she explained.
“[They] don’t realize … that there is so much abundance of creativity in what [the community] has to share,” said Diaz. “They don’t come to ask the community questions about what they think and what [they] have to share, [but rather] apply a preset notion of what they think the community needs or what they are.”
Another challenge for the couple has been reframing the language of the content they were producing.
“The world sees our kids as underserved and as gangsters, while we see our kids as artists, talented collectors, and arts advocates,” Diaz explained. “But you have to be an observer [to do that] and be in touch with what they see so that you can facilitate language.”
“We don’t use the same language and that is the reason why we decided to not be a nonprofit,” Ybarra said. “We don’t want to keep reiterating this language that is the framework for how you work in communities and who the people are that you work within these communities. But then that means that we don’t apply for funding resources. We navigate that by keeping our overhead low. We don’t have fancy printing presses or big kilns. We keep it simple. It’s been really fun for us.”
Since they didn’t have any funding or specialized equipment, they abided by the advice they were given by their mentors at Homeland Cultural Arts Center in Long Beach: Use what you have and do your best with what you have.
When Ybarra and Diaz opened Slanguage, they said their kids started coming up with their own ideas for workshops such as a stencil-cutting workshop.
Ybarra explained that the framework of Slanguage pedagogy encapsulates all of the above actions they have discussed. Also, Diaz added, the key was providing that space at Slanguage.
Diaz said they were also very intentional about having an exchange not only with local artists but also with national and international artists.
“That kind of interdisciplinary learning, where the kids came and [have] that variety of engagement with all the different artists,” Diaz said. “Whether that was a curator that was visiting or they were exhibiting a local artist while a national artist was doing a residency, or [it’s] a national artist we were showcasing with a musician or a performance artist, it all helped their growth and enriched their learning.”
It’s what Ybarra likes to call train crashing, where different people come from different worlds and perspectives into this space to engage.
“That’s the first crash, or bump,” Diaz said. “But they have to engage, interact or see each other.
“Can you imagine how many art spaces there are in LA, where there are different crowds of people? Usually, you go to an art space and it’s the same crowd. How many are multi-engaging on different levels? Coming from writing, performance, and art in my background, I felt that was so important to have in this studio and I think we did that well.”
Ybarra said it’s important for kids to have these experiences because if they don’t see it how are they going to be it?
The inspiration for the name Slanguage comes from the film Blade Runner. Ybarra said Edward James Olmos plays a character who speaks a language of the future that is pieced together from all the major languages spoken in Los Angeles. At the time it was Spanish, English, and German.
“But that’s what we’ve been doing in the studio … develop our own language in our own way,” he said.
“What better way to do that than with … slang,” Diaz said. “It even connects to the language of funding. It’s very structured and creates a certain kind of picture. So we were hoping to create something new. We don’t quite fit in that framework and also, that [structural] language is from 30 years ago. We are contemporary artists and we need to have our own perspective inserted in this. It could be an alternative way of thinking about art, artists making art, and in terms of mentorship.”
Diaz said organizations don’t often see Slanguage as a supporter of Latin or Latinx organizations and Mexican Americans. Slanguage is very open to diversity but she said some organizations come in and put right up front that they serve the Latino community. Slanguage wanted to extend its community and what that could mean. That’s why it was able to tap into artists from different groups that were not necessarily Mexican or of one origin.
“But they could embrace that we could have that conversation surrounding the arts with a focus on art making, ideas, substance, social justice and action,” Diaz said. “The challenges that we had, whether it was family or personal or economic, [underneath] that, what kept me going was that we created this community of people who were supporting us. That’s why I’m doing it.
Mario Ybarra in conversation at his Slanguage table.
Ybarra said most organizations go by numbers. He doesn’t want to paint a singular picture of success.
“We’ve had successes like that but I always say, ‘we have homies in jail and we have homies at Yale, literally’ We’re all in constant stages of development so I’m not going to criticize. Artists all learn in different ways,” he said.
In practice, Slanguage has facilitated an environment of fun and playful competition with its students. Ybarra and Diaz would divide their students into Samurai and Ninja teams and see who could be the most productive as they worked on projects. Teams were mixed genders and worked in a spirit of welcome and fun.
That has been an important element for Ybarra and Diaz as they celebrate the 20th anniversary of Slanguage.
Notice To Appear: Defendants Copy by Amoldo Vargas
The Passing of the Baton
Ybarra and Diaz are gratified in seeing that spirit expressed in the up-and-coming generations of Slanguage artists and watching the professionalism and their individual and collective funkiness grow.
For the celebration, the founders let the curators do their thing, only gently guiding them when necessary. Ybarra said confidence has been built, and the baton has been passed.
“We were able to do our jobs in terms of raising artists who are fully capable of taking up the challenges of being artists, working within the arts and they have each other as well, a support network,” he said. “I got to see that in action. That was the best part of it.”
“When I think about what kind of change or impact I want to make as an artist, that’s the biggest thing, to allow them to learn and make an impact in the arts now that they can take that on,” Diaz said. “When you talk about social change and impacting the community, what better way to do that … in their own way, make an impact on the community.”
We Run Things, Things Don’t Run We will be on view in the AGCC galleries Oct. 22 to Dec. 10, with open gallery hours Thursdays to Saturdays between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
In addition to the exhibition, Slanguage-led programming will create additional opportunities for nuanced public engagement in the following free public events at Angels Gate Cultural Center and online:
- Nov. 5, 1:30 pm to 3 p.m. – Spoken word workshop and open mic with Aquí Collective
- Nov.15, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., online – Bodies as Primary Sites of Learning workshop with Sarita Dougherty
- Nov.1, 3 to 4:30 p.m. – Slanguage Across Generations panel talk at open studios day
Details: www.instagram.com/slanguagestudio