(2018-2019)
A city without culture is a dead city. You just live to eat and work. Where there’s no creativity, no spontaneity, it’s a challenge to get your dreams going.
–Gustavo Aranda, High school music teacher
VozFrontera was a program for youth engagement, leadership, and local arts incubation in Nogales, Arizona. It offers documentary arts mentoring with youth, artist- and scholar in-residence programs, and co-working lab space for young leaders and entrepreneurs.
The program was initiated with support from ArtPlace America, which funds projects across the country that place arts and culture as the center of social, physical, and economic change. The $350,000 award provided initial funding for the program.
The project was informed by a 2017 assessment we conducted for the UA College of Social and Behavioral Sciences to determine community needs and desires in Nogales, Arizona. The assessment revealed a number of pressing issues in Nogales, including: 1) Limited Economic Opportunities, 2) Talent Flight, 3) Downtown Revitalization, 4) Lack of Public Arts/Culture Events and Opportunities, 5) Cross-border Community Building, 6) Public Health. It also revealed key community partners already working to address some of these issues. Some of those partners helped launch VozFrontera.
Here’s a sampling of youth films from DocuNogales, Spring 2019:
My Daily Morning by Adrian Velazquez from Southwest Folklife Alliance on Vimeo.
But Then I Come in the Picture from Southwest Folklife Alliance on Vimeo.
Youth Binational Summit, Nogales, AZ and Nogales, Sonora. March 8, 2018. Organized by SEEDS/Semillas youth group. Photo by Maxwell Gay
Castro House. Photo courtesy of SBS-Tech