Contigo Aprendí (2024)

An altar installation created in collaboration with my brother, Alfredo Olguín Jr., in honor of one of the greatest gifts life will ever give us; our elder, teacher, friend, now ancestor; our grandfather.

This altar was installed as a part of a Dia de los Muertos centered exhibition in honor of the martyrs of Palestine. Through our altar and our perpetual love and grief for our Papa Beto, Alfredo and I aimed at highlighting the teachings of our elders, the way in which they teach us to resist, and the knowledge we carry forward with us; intergenerational resistance. When Alfredo and I have shared organizing spaces, we’ve been asked, “who taught you both?” And we always respond with a smile, “our grandpa.” Across the peninsula, from the city to south city, day after day cruising in the mini van with Papa Beto, boleros playing softly in the back as our elder shared story after story connecting us to our home and our homeland, lesson after lesson. Years later would I realize that the most important classroom I had ever had was my grandpas van. I last shared a conversation with my grandpa over 7 years ago and yet I still continue learning from him, It feels so easy to recenter when I get lost because of the way he grounded me in all I am and all we know. My guide, so much of what I’ve done and the life I’ve lead have been because of the lessons in that van.

Alfredo and I wanted to create an offering to him, recreate our dear classroom (probably for us), and use it as a reminder to us all that our ancestors have always resisted. We fight because they taught us how. We built the dashboard of my grandpas Honda Odyssey to stand as an altar, accompanied with a mural of home, el df to south city, and an offering of all the work we’ve done thanks to his teachings.