Project Title:  Imperial Silence: Una Ópera Muerta / A Dead Opera in Four Animated Acts, and El Muertorider
Recipient Organization:  Oakland Museum of California
Lead Artist:  John Jota Leaños
Genre and Date Awarded:  Media Arts, June 2006
Presented:  October 22 through December 1, 2006
Web Links: www.leanos.net;

Collaborating with the Oakland Museum of California, John Jota Leaños created a new media opera, “Imperial Silence: Una Ópera Muerta / A Dead Opera in Four Animated Acts,” an installation, containing “El Muertorider” and related events that formed a centerpiece for the Museum’s annual 2006 Days of the Dead program. The supported project’s primary components were: an animated opera in four acts; an installation featuring a customized high-tech 1968 Chevy Impala in collaboration with Artemio Rodríguez with video and sound projections; and pilot Days of the Dead lesson plans and empowered points.

Leaños’s “Xican@ Opera” weaves together satire, social commentary, and remembrance, and features mariachi, boleros, huapangos, rock-en-Español, children’s rhymes and Chicano blues—creating a unique digital ofrenda.  Its four acts, which can be visited at www.leanos.net, are: Act I, “Los ABCs ¡Qué Vivan los Muertos!,” Act II, “Deadtime Stories with Mariachi Goose and Friends,” Act III, “¡Radio Muerto!” and Act IV, “DNN: Dead News Network.”

The installation’s centerpiece, “El Muertorider”—a customized 1968 Chevy Impala—pays homage to the complex and innovative history of cruising and low riding in California with a "Dead Lowrider" designed by Artemio Rodriguez, Sean Levon Nash and Leaños. The work commemorates the victims of Hurricane Katrina as well as lives lost at war. It also offers social commentary on the policing and silencing of grassroots cruising culture in California. The fully functioning mobile art installation includes four animations from “Imperial Silence” that play on the LCD movie screen in the car as well as radio programs from ¡Radio Muerto!, a specially curated radio dial with content from dozens of artists, writers, youth, and everyday Californians.

Museum visitors were able to sit in the car and listen to the radio and view the animation on a screen inside the car. The artist and museum also held a film screening on November 19, 2006, which showed Acts I through III of “Imperial Silence.”

Leaños’s new media opera and installation was an extension of his earlier explorations of the Days of the Dead tradition north of the border. As an indigenous practice of remembering and coming to terms with those who have passed, the Days of the Dead celebration is an increasingly popular practice in the United States. For Leaños, the open, honest, and colorful acknowledgement of death is an important cultural lesson for a mainstream society that generally treats death with silence and fear.

The work had political and social activist intentions as well. Leaños wrote:

“This project also speaks to this country’s long history of silencing dissenting voices and critical perspectives during times of war, a tactical history of silencing that I have identified as imperial silence. The opera attempts to embrace silence by demonstrating absence and articulating that which is not spoken through popular media forms. What role can art play in disrupting imperial silence?”

John Jota Leaños is an interdisciplinary Chicano artist and educator merging new forms with traditional practice. He has developed a body of performances, public artworks, installations, sound work and new media work that seeks the convergence of memory, history, and social space. Supported in part by an earlier grant from the Creative Work Fund, he initiated the Digital Mural Project at the Galería de la Raza in 1999 that fused Mexican-Chicana/o mural traditions with digital technologies. He has exhibited internationally in museums and galleries as well as installed public art in several cities in the United States. In 2002, Leaños represented California at the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Whitney Biennial.  In 2006, his animation, “Los ABCs ¡Qué Vivan Los Muertos!” was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival. He is a co-founder of the artist collective Los Cybrids: La Raza Techno-Critica, which created a series of critical new media works from Latina/o perspectives between 2000 and 2004. 

“Imperial Silence” marked an opportunity for the Oakland Museum of California to launch a new “Artists-in-Action” pilot program, fostering the creation of new work by California artists in collaboration with the museum’s Education Department. The program is meant to engage visitors by revealing the process of producing artworks in dialogue with artists and the museum’s collections and gallery themes. It also is meant to entice students to learn through the use of popular forms of new media such as animation, web music, streaming radio, interactive games, and puzzles.

With collections devoted to the art, history, and natural sciences of California, the Oakland Museum of California fosters appreciation and understanding of the state’s complex story and environment.  It strives to reach the widest possible constituency and has made concerted efforts to build Latino community and support networks in Oakland and the greater Bay Area. It is well known for its annual Days of the Dead project, which has hosted more than 200 artists creating a wide range of altars, installations, and performances; and that encompasses an exhibition, community celebration, and public programs that explore the origins, history, and growth of the tradition.  The Days of the Dead is among the museum’s most popular offerings, serving up to 18,000 visitors per year, including more than 6,000 students from local schools.

LEAD ARTIST

John Jota Leaños

Selected Film Festivals
2008   San Diego International Latino Film Festival
      WildSound Film Festival, Toronto
      Cine Las Americas Film Festival, Austin
      Phoenix Film Festival 08

2007   Mill Valley Film Festival, CA
      Cannes Short Film Corner, France
      San Francisco International Festival of Short Films
      Arizona International Film Festival, Tucson
      WILDsound Film Festival, Toronto
      Silverlake Film Festival, Los Angeles
      San Francisco International Animation Festival     
      Cine Sin Fin – 13th East LA Chicano Film Festival, Los Angeles
      Reel Rasquache Film Festival of Latina/o Arts, Los Angeles
               Campecine Film Festival, San Jose, CA; Austin, TX, Chicago, IL

2006   Sundance Film Festival 06, UT
            Artivist Film Festival, Los Angeles           
            Silverlake Film Festival, Los Angeles
                        Heard Museum Film Festival, Phoenix
                        XicanIndie Film Festival, Denver (Best Short Award)
                        Sin Fronteras Film Festival, Albuquerque (Audience Award)
                        Jacksonville Film Festival, FL
               Southside Film Festival, New York

Selected Exhibitions

• “The 2008 Whitney Biennial” participating broadcast in collaboration with Neighborhood Public Radio, East Oakland School of the Arts and California College of the Arts from East Oakland, (2008)
•  “We’re Not Going to Take It: Political Short Films of Our Times,” The Yearly KOS Convention, Chicago (2007)
• “Art & the City: Los Angeles Icons,” The Globe Theater, Los Angeles (2007)
• “Ancient Roots, Urban Journies,” Oakland Museum of California, CA (2007)
• “Why I Ride: From Low to Show,” Brava Theater for the Arts, San Francisco (2007)
• “Potentially Harmful: The Art of American Censorship,” Georgia State University Museum (2006)
• “Arte Nuevo Interactiva,” Olimpo Cultural Center, Mérida, Mexico (2005)
• “A Knock at the Door…,” The Cooper Union, New York (2005)
• “The Disasters of War: From Goya to Golub,” Center for the Arts, Wesleyan University, Connecticut (2005)
• “Su Arte Here,” Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, California (2005)
• “Paradigms Lost,” Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, California (2004)
• “Ofrendas de Pasión, Milagros y Paz,” SomArts, San Francisco, California (2004)
• “Empire: Videos for a New Century,” Meyerhoff Gallery, Maryland Institute of Art (2004)
• “Picarte: Photography Beyond Representation,” The Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona (2004)
• “The 2002 Whitney Biennial,” The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York (2002)
• “Time Capsule,” Art in General, New York, New York (2003)
• “R & D,” The Lab, San Francisco, California (2002)
• “Co-Lab: New Generations and Collaborative Art,” San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco, California (2002)
• “Race in Digital Space,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, Massachusetts (2001)
• “Techno-Promesas: Putografia Virtual,” Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, California (2001)
• Chicanos in Mictlán, Mexican Museum, San Francisco, California (2000)
• Mission Voices 2000, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, California (2000)
• MFA 2000, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California (2000)
• “Hecho en Califas: The Last Decade,” Mexican Heritage Plaza, San Jose, California (2000)
• “Hecho en Califas,” Plaza de la Raza, Los Angeles, California (2000)
• “El Color de la Muerte,” Oakland Museum, Oakland, California (1999)
• “Los Muertos,” Museo del Barrio, New York, New York (1999)
• Leo D. Stillwell Exhibition, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California (1998)
• “Labyrinth for the Dead,” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, California (1998)
• “El Niño: Chaos and Destruction,” Galería de la Raza,” San Francisco, California (1998)

Select Public Art Projects

• “Public Memorial of Pat Tillman, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona (2004)
• “All Eyes on Iraq,” Downtown Phoenix, Arizona (2004)
• “Humaquina: Manifest Tech-Destiny,” Digital Mural, Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, California (2001)
• “The Last One to Cross the Digital Divide is a Rotten Egg,” Digital Mural, Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, California (2001)
• “Webopticon: Sistema de Vigilancia,” Digital Mural, Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, California (2001)
• “Mapping Myself,” kiosk posters with Horace Mann Middle School, San Francisco, California (2001)
• “Ese, the Last of His Tribe,” Digital Billboard, Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, California (2000)
• “San Francisco Historical Circle of the Displaced,” San Francisco Arts Commission Market Street Art in Transit Program, San Francisco, California (2000)
• “The Mission Y2K?” Digital Mural, Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, California (1999)
• “Innerviews: 24th Street Billboard and Mural Project,” Potrero Hill Middle School, School of the Arts, San Francisco, California (1999)
• “Los Restos Coloniales se Manifiestan en el Olvido,” Digital Mural, Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, California (1998)

Select Performances

• “El Techno-Santero” Powering Up/Powering Down Conference, University of California, San Diego; Abriendo Brecha Conference, University of Texas, Austin (2004)
• “El World Brain Disorder: surveillance.control.pendejismo,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California; Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island; University of San Francisco, San Francisco, California; Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona (2003)
• “El World Brain Disorder: surveillance.control.pendejismo,” Race in Digital Space Conference, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California; Empty Space Theater, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona (2002)
• “De-Educación: Computas in La Classroom,” Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, California (2001)
• “Cyber-Milico Intervention,” San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California (2001)
• “Global EduMaquina,” San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California (2001)
• “The Global WarMaquina: The Internet and Its Discontents,” The Lab, San Francisco, California (2000)
• “The Last Mexican in the Mission: Performance Press Conference, Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, California (2000)

Select Curating

• “Pasajes y Encuentros: Ofrendas for the Days of the Dead,” Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, California (2001)
• “Digital Mural Project,” Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, California (1999-2002)
• “Innerviews,” a series of public artworks done by youth, San Francisco, California (1999-2001)

Select Publications by the Artist

• “Dead Conversations on Art and Politics,” essay in Filming Difference: The Filmmakers Take on Gender, Race, Sexuality, and (o)ther Social Formations, forthcoming, Daniel Bernardi (editor) (2008)
•  “Ideological Surveillance,” essay in Censorship in Camouflage: The Arts & Free Expression Today, edited by Robert Atkins and Svetlana Mintcheva, The New Press (2006)
• “The (Postcolonial) Rules of Engagement: Cultural Activism, Advertising Zones & Xican@ Digital Muralism,” With and Without Permission (2006)
• “Intellectual Freedom and Pat Tillman, essay in online zine, Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life, January 2005, http://bad.eserer.org/reviews/2005/leanosstatement.html/ (2005)

Select Awards, Grants, and Fellowships

• Visions from the New California, Alliance of Artists, Headlands Center for the Arts (2007)
• Creative Work Fund Grant (2006-07)
• Potrero Nuevo Fund
• Creative Capital Foundation Grant
• Center for Chicano Studies Artist-in-Residence, University of California, Santa Barbara (2005-06)
• Season for Sharing Grant (2004)
• Fellow, Center for Arts in Society, Carnegie Mellon University (2002-03)
• Zellerbach Family Fund (2002)
• Potrero Nuevo Fund Prize (2001)
• Creative Work Fund (2000-01)

University Positions

• Assistant Professor of Community Arts and Social Practices, California College of the Arts
• Assistant Professor of Chicana/o Studies, Arizona State University (2003-05)