GALA Inc. Grupo de Artistas Latinoamericanos

GALA has contracted performance artist Elia Arce and journalist/activist Ruben Martinez to create and present a local version of their project, ‘Little Central America, 1984: A Sanctuary Then, and Now’. This is an intersectional piece that ties the current refugee crisis to the increasingly traumatizing effects of climate change. The project leaders will interview refugees who arrived in DC in the 1980s and weave these interviews together with poetry and live music, recreating the era when the conflicts in Guatemala and El Salvador displaced over one million people and spawned transnational solidarity through the Sanctuary Movement. Arce will also spark conversations among the participants about what she calls “ecological memory”. There will be 2 weeks of residency activities at GALA, including working with Central American youth, and three public performances on July 21, 22, and 23, followed by talk-backs with leaders of the Sanctuary movement, today's activists and refugees.