Our Cultivation Practice

Cultivation Over Preservation

As Latine/x educators, scholars, and cultural workers we have shaped our practice in various museums and cultural spaces of Chicago. Over the years we have developed culturally responsive approaches to education, curation, public programs, and institutional structures. 

Our cultivation practice is rooted in an abolitionist approach to preservation that challenges power structures and reimagines the powerful potential of telling and collecting our own histories.  

Cultivation work is deeply personal. It recognizes the knowledge and stories we hold in our bodies as key sites of cultural productions. While central to our practice is the collection and preservation of oral histories and material culture, so is the well being of our communities. 

Cultivation work is an embodied practice, by which we mean that we position ourselves within the larger understanding of history; both as actors and storytellers. 

Our cultivation work is informed by histories of Black abolitionist pedagogy, Indigenous decolonial practice, and Queer liberation across the continent now known as the Americas and the Caribbean. It is within these practices that we position our understanding of preservation as deeply tied to the cultivation of community.

Cultivation work challenges the static preservation and collection of culture for one that is rooted in the collaborative nurture and care of people as the stewards of their culture. 

Pedagogy to Practice:

• Prioritize Digitization- We prioritize digitization to ensure that cultural artifacts continue to thrive in their respective cultural homes.

• Communal Storytelling- We understand our role as collaborators in/with communities working towards the cultivation of Chicago’s Latine/x culture. 

• Praxis of Care- We cultivate and foster Latine/x ecosystems of community care across the city of Chicago.