… A whole lot of artmaking in a one-of-a-kind visual arts space
By Linda Caballero Sotelo
If you haven’t made it out to the southernmost part of San Diego county, where the San Diego/Tijuana border meet, then you’ve been missing out on one of the most unique spaces and areas in San Diego: San Ysidro’s only space for art, culture, design and urbanism: THE FRONT.
Since its opening, THE FRONT has enabled the production of new social and cultural relations bringing together arts and social programming, affordable housing and urban research at the border, straddling San Diego and Tijuana.
THE FRONT is part of Casa Familiar’s Arts & Culture Division, under the able hands of its gallery Director, Leticia Gomez Franco, this space was conceived as a cultural think tank that would amplify the “neighborhood” of San Ysidro as a site of cultural production, while engaging local residents and claiming the border region as a unique artistic laboratory. The Salon is a second arts space in the area; housed in what was once a church, in fact, San Ysidro’s one hundred year old Catholic church. The structure was acquired by Casa Familiar and has been repurposed as a gallery and meeting space, serving as the second of Casa Familiar’s art galleries, and a part of an ambitious multi use development project entitled ‘Livingrooms at the Border’. [Read more…]