Caldo de Pollo

Caldo de Pollo is a video and installation piece made in 2020 as a collaborative effort between M. Jenea Sanchez, Gabriela Muñoz and the women of the DouglaPrieta Trabajan collective. The work is a celebration of reacquired knowledge and speaks to the idiom of chicken soup as medicine or food for the soul. For the production of this piece, the artists traveled to Agua Prieta, Sonora to learn the act of preparing chicken soup in the traditional way commonplace to their ancestors. From the raising of the animals, to their humane butchering, and their careful preparation into a meal that nourishes. The piece remarks on the importance of having a healthy connection to and understanding of food production, and the labor behind food sovereignty. Sanchez’s and Muñoz’s children and mothers accompanied them to participate in the learning experience, connecting a previously broken link in the passing on of this knowledge.

The two tables that form part of the exhibition were commissioned by the artists from DPT’s Migrant Carpentry Workshop in Colonia Ladrillo, a volunteer based program DPT created space for as a way of providing opportunities for work to migrants detained at the border, fostering a mission that values labor as an act of dignity and opportunity. The larger of the two tables depicts portraits of the women who taught the artists, their children, and their mothers these new, valuable skills. On the smaller table rests a portrait of Munoz’s mother and daughter opposite Sanchez’s mother and son signifying the link to heritage through shared knowledge.