Fairy Tales for Truth and Justice

We are excited to announce that graphic artist Carla Zarate, musician Gloria Estrada, and singer/songwriter Ruby Castellanos will be speaking and performing at the Fairy Tales for Truth and Justice exhibit closing reception.

Developed through a one-year onsite artist-in-residence program at Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, California, SanTana’s Fairy Tales is a visual art installation, oral history, storytelling project initiated by artist/author Sarah Rafael García. The project integrates community-based narratives to create contemporary fairytales and fables that represent the history and stories of Mexican/Mexican-American residents of Santa Ana (inspired by the Grimm’s’ fairy tales).

The book and multi-media installation, created by García in collaboration with local visual, musical and performance artists, include a bilingual collection of the following stories:

“The Carousel’s Lullaby”
Santa Ana’s urban history intertwined with a traditional Mexican-folk lullaby and a haunting ghost carousel.

“Zoraida & Marisol”
The godmother of Life or Death, Zoraida grants transgente a vital wish at their last breath.

“Just a House”
Josie, a young girl caught between two worlds, the haunting past and displaced futures.

“Hector & Graciela” (an homage to the Brothers Grimm’s Hansel & Gretel)
Hunger, uncertainty, border crossings—a precarious family-life in Santa Ana.

“When the Mural Speaks…”
One man’s perspective, a fable from the faces on the wall.

“The Wishing Well”
A central landmark becomes a magical promenade of forgotten wishes and parallel worlds.

Sarah Rafael García is a writer, editor, community educator, and traveler.  Since publishing Las Niñas in 2008, she founded Barrio Writers and LibroMobile. Her writing has appeared in Latino Magazine, Contrapuntos III, Outrage: A Protest Anthology for Injustice in a Post 9/11 World, La Tolteca Zine, The Acentos Review, among others.  Sarah Rafael is also a Macondo Fellow, Las Dos Brujas Writers’ Workshop participant, and an editor for the Barrio Writers and Pariahs Writing from Outside the Margins anthologies.  In 2016, Sarah Rafael was featured in The Fem Literary Magazine and awarded for SanTana’s Fairy Tales (Raspa Magazine 2017), which is supported in part by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the visual arts, through a grant supporting the artist-in-residence initiative at Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, California.  The City of Santa Ana loaned the original elements from the Fiesta Marketplace Sign and carousel.