Texas A&M Ph.D. Candidate Anthony Ramirez & Convergent Media member joey lopez recently presented “Critical Cultural Exploration of Video Game Stores Within Tejanx Communities” through Zoom at the Texas Tech Gaming Symposium – “The Hispanic and Latin American Video Gaming Experience: Imagery, Industry & Audience.”
The Symposium was awesome! While we had hoped to go in person, the hosts canceled in person when Texas weather decided to get crazy. You can check out the full article on Anthony’s blog where we published the paper, a podcast and our images from our research.
Back in the mid 2010’s CMC co-founder Jonathan Guajardo was attending the University of Incarnate Word. He had completed his bachelors and was accepted to their masters program. For his final project he created “The BMC Effect,” a thorough look at alternative pedagogical programs that led up to the creation of the Convergent Media program at UIW and hence The Convergent Media Collective. For whatever reason, this project was never shared here at the CMC website. So we are circling back 8 years later to celebrate, promote and encourage others to take Johnny’s work and build upon it. We are always looking for more ways of thinking about teaching and process when it comes to alternative pedagogy and project based learning.
This is the mural I met Ernesto at. He was one of the facilitators and I (and my wife) was a community participant.
It is always a pleasure to have new collaborators join us. I have known Ernesto Cuevas for some time. He has attended a couple of our meet ups. But I met him initially through a community mural project I participated in and then further when I documented his Barrio Works project on our openEDSA.org blog.
Recently Ernesto and I began working out together at the gym (gotta stay healthy to Make Stuff). Our work outs have basically turned into weekly platicas where we share our work and creative ideas together, many of which have trickled into the CMC realm.
An example of Ernesto’s ability to bring community into his art.
Ernesto’s experience as an Artist, Graphic Designer and Community Advocate has been a humbling yet amazing journey to hear about. Ernesto’s ability to engage communities to develop their own identities and express them through intermodal art murals, canvas work and other mediums has been very inspiring. His own journey of growing up as a son of migrant farm workers definitely gives a foundation to his own art work that transcends into the 21st century in a very beautiful way. Working both on Canvas and digitally with a Wacom, amongst other mediums. Ernesto’s ability to create unique works that tell stories of both personal and humanistic adversity gives patrons of his work a visual experience that leaves them wanting to see more.
Owning a Hi-Fi shop, I love this piece.
One project we have collectively been discussing is a series of children books that explore various experiences as a youth.
So Ernesto the Convergent Media Collective tips our hat at you. Your Art work and Community Advocacy is inspiring. And last but not least, Ernesto’s graphic design as you can imagine is very professional and on par with some of the greats. We look forward to future collaborations and wish you the best of luck as an artist and professional graphic designer!
