A compass to guide us toward well-being here and there is a massive ephemeral mandala made of corn, beans, rice and painted protest banners, conceptualized and designed by Emily C-D, and created in community as a central feature of Florecer Aquí y Allá (Flourish Here and There), a trans-local, pro-migration festival organized by Otros Dreams en Acción (ODA). Installed in the Zócalo main square of Mexico City on July 6, 2019, the artwork invited people to consider migration from an environmental perspective and through an artistic and participatory process. The mandala was interactive, with the public walking across it, as well as becoming a stage for various performances throughout the day. After the event, all of the seeds used in the construction of the giant 50 ft. mandala—nearly 700 lbs—were donated to local shelters so that migrants might eat. Florecer Aquí y Allá was the recipient of the Best Citizen Action Award in the Premios Ciudad, Mexico City, 2019.
"Over 3k+ deportees, returnees, refugees, allies, volunteers, attendees, and passers-by came together...The artist Emily C-D co-created with us a stunning fifty-foot wide mandala made of seeds that had six trans-local demands: Families Belong Together, Diverse Communities, People Before Papers, Safety and Inclusion, Education and Jobs, Abolish Migrant Detention. Six minimum conditions that we all need in order to flourish in our countries of origin and in the communities we join throughout our migration journey. A seventh condition, Climate Justice and the importance of defending our territories, arose as an overarching message of the artistic action evoked by the corn, beans, and rice [used] to make the mandala."
—Jill Anderson & Maggie Laredo (co-founders of ODA), "Story Walking towards Liveable Futures," in New Narratives on the Peopling of America: Immigration, Race, and Dispossession. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024.
Florecer Aquí y Allá was organized as a trans-local event, and actions occurred simultaneously in 14 different communities in North America all the way from San Pedro Sula, Honduras up to New York City. Four different migrant communities spontaneously recreated the mandala design as a part of their local celebrations; this was truly the power of pollination, art that crosses borders to bring people together! Children painted in Sunset Park, Brooklyn with the New Sanctuary Coalition of NYC, Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir, the Hemispheric Institute at NYU, Red de Pueblos Trasnacionales, and Global Exchange. In Tijuana, Espacio Migrante and Dreamers Moms created a gorgeous rendition with colored sawdust. La Resistencia in Tacoma, Washington made a wonderful poster with different native plants springing from the stems. And in Chicago, Organized Communities Against Deportation chalked their demands and dreams onto the street.
"Emily C-D's design invited participants to collectively construct a flower-shaped mandala...featuring the six proposals. Florecer Aquí y Allá seeks to transform dominant narratives about migration as a crisis and a security problem, shifting towards notions of mutualism, solidarity, resilience, and humanity. At the heart of this project is the concept of blossoming as something that unites us all as humans and breaks with the unidirectionality and nationalism that often characterize concepts and policies guided by principles such as integration, assimilation, or inclusion."
—Alexandra Délano Alonso, De Aquí y De Allá: diásporas, inclusión y derechos sociales más allá de las fronteras. Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 2020.
Video by Antifaz Política. To learn more about Florecer Aquí y Allá, check out some of the press as well as the article "Flowering: Here, There & Everywhere" that Emily had published in the SeedBroadcast agri-Culture Journal #14.
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