Salvadoran Artist Jose Campos Discusses His Installation ‘Chisme’

On Friday, March 17, at 6 p.m., Jose Campos — aka Studio Lenca — will discuss his new installation “Chisme” in a public program at the Parrish Art Museum. A recent gift from Mario Cader-Frech, “Chisme” comprises 15 large-scale woodcut figures of Latin migrant workers that Studio Lenca completed in partnership with WeCount!, a membership-led organization of low-wage immigrant workers in South Florida who were invited to draw plants, trees and seeds on the backs of the figures, thereby bringing their lives and stories to light. In the program, he will discuss his thoughts on and experiences with topics including visibility, nobility, and challenges faced by migrant workers.

Campos spent his early years in a corrugated metal shelter in Santiago Nonualco, El Salvador. Displaced as a consequence of El Salvador’s violent civil war, he is unsure of his official date of birth and family history. Among the first waves of child migrants moving to the U.S., Campos traveled illegally overland with his mother in hopes of joining his father and ultimately living as “illegal aliens,” working as domestics and laborers with no fixed address.

With “Chisme,” Campos upends traditional roles by bringing typically ignored, overlooked individuals to the forefront: The figures represent the antithesis of those resigned to live hidden from view due to forced assimilation or concern for personal safety. Rather, the cutouts depict migrant workers reimagined as monumental, joyful figures dressed in canary yellow, tangerine, or neon pink and sporting extravagant hats. Rather than toiling in obscurity, they purposefully take up space, standing with dignity and meeting the viewer eye-to-eye.

Campos’s preferred artist name, Studio Lenca, refers first to the studio as a space for experimentation and laboratory for practice. Lenca refers to an indigenous people from El Salvador and central Honduras. Campos uses his work to address his own sense of belonging and defy the narrative surrounding his Latin community, manipulating and recalibrating visibly Latin cues to create a joyful world for an imagined flourishing existence. Collaged sorpresa wrappers, colones, cargo sacks, and indigo paste are used as triggers for collective reimagining.

Campos studied art and design and has an MA in arts and learning from Goldsmiths University of London; and an MA in contemporary dance from Contemporary Dance School. He’s had several solo exhibitions around the world.

“Chisme” was organized by the Parrish’s curatorial and education departments led by Corinne Erni, deputy director of curatorial affairs, and Martha Stotzky, deputy director of arts education.

Admission to the talk by Jose Campos are $16 ($5 members, $12 seniors, free for students and children). For more information, visit parrishart.org. The Parrish Art Museum is at 279 Montauk Highway, Water Mill.