Pon La Mesa is a physically-interactive, bilingual art installation at Land Heritage Institute by San Antonio artist Jose Chapa addressing contemporary proclivities toward diabetes and obesity by investigating nutrition and wellness issues.
Pon la Mesa (Spanish for “set the table”) consists of a table and seats surrounded by a set of wall units wrapped/upholstered entirely with a technique called repujado in Spanish or repousse in French: interior copper sheets create a warm internal space that contrast with external aluminum sheets which create a colder exterior surface; all are embossed with content-related text and symbols (from The Noun Project—an online effort that is “building a global visual language that everyone can understand” https://www.facebook.com/thenounproject/info). Some symbols and text are autobiographical, some calls-to-action, some storytelling, all fragmented as developed by social sculptor Chapa who creates structures in society using action, language, objects and thought.
Chapa’s social practice art is concerned with mass communications, media access, marketer messaging: Food imagery, access and overload, paralleled with political issues involving GMOs, increases in food allergies, toxins—what gets through and what doesn’t and when and the consequences of these seepages, literally and figuratively: On the inside of his “dining room” structure, all language text is in Spanish, just as it was in Jose’s home growing up in Chicago’s suburbs; all language text on the exterior surfaces of Pon la Mesa are in English because that is what his family faced outside.
The complexity of the Pon la Mesa structure mimics the complications of eating habits as linked to larger societal issues, daily, regional and/or global; its simplicity reminds those who engage with Pon la Mesa of classic community monuments, like the patterned Mayan pyramids of southern Mexico that deeply inform Chapa’s studies and memories. The work and its topics could be identified as culturally specific to the Hispanic community but its messages pertain to all San Antonio social stratas.
A mobile Pon la Mesa prototype was developed in 2011 as a prototype that has “popped-up” at community events as part of the following community projects and partnerships:
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•Brackenridge High School in collaboration with Martinez Street Women’s
Center (2013)
• Centro para la Semilla Launch (2013)
• Monterrey Park Outdoor Movie Screening (2013)
• Lincoln Park Outdoor Movie Screening (2013)
• Denver Heights Neighborhood Community Day (2012)
• Esperanza Center exhibition (2012)
• Southtown First Friday pop-up (2012)
This prototype was designed to “pop-up” at schools and parks; the installation is constructed to fit together “IKEA-style,” it can travel/ship flat, and it can be installed guerrilla-style by a team of three in less than an hour. Chapa collaborated with San Antonio architect Darryl Ohlenbusch to achieve this efficiency of assembly.
Pon la Mesa on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pon-la-Mesa/120174224722031
