A colorful, eight-and-a-half-foot sculpture reaches toward the ceiling; its rabbit ears toward the top. Its pig nose, turtle shell, and dinosaur body make for an almost magical sight, water patterns and stripes and all.
“What do they like to eat? How were they born?” kids surrounding the art ask the artist behind the work.
Meet Gabriela Jiménez Marván, maker of the two alebrijes currently at Above and Beyond Children’s Museum in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The papier-mâché works are folk art traditions— cartonería—from Mexico City starting in the 1930s.
Tradition, Meet Imagination
Her alebrijes are part of the museum’s larger Community Culture Exchange. In its second iteration, Above and Beyond has invited local Mexican American artists to bring art, stories, music, and cuisine to children and families in the area.
Since last year, Marván has organized alebrije and papel picado workshops, displayed masks and other cartonería pieces, and collaborated with Mexican bakers and musicians. She’s told bilingual stories and hosted an ofrenda for Día de Muertos at the museum. She says it’s meaningful both for local Mexican Americans and others.
“One lady told me, ‘I’m so proud that you are here. It’s really cool being represented through Mexican art.’ And I feel that is really important in a way that connects with the Latino community,” says Marván, who lives in Viroqua, Wisconsin, and is from Mexico. “And I feel that learning another cultures through art opens your mind and creates more cultural understanding and empathy.”
She says creating art in this way—with culture and community—is how it’s done. Papier-mâché or tortillas alone don’t mean as much without context, appreciation, and togetherness.
“They are part of a community celebration inviting people and building art together and food and music,” Marván says, noting artists from the Mexican Folk Art Collective have collaborated throughout. “There is that soul of tradition.”
The museum’s first Community Culture Exchange opened in 2022 with help from local Hmong artists and input from neighbors. It’s something executive director Cate Tinker sees as essential to childhood development and perspective.
The exchange encourages language development and fine motor skills while creating, she says. And culturally relevant and inclusive art helps families have conversations around belonging and diversity.
All kids can see artists and neighbors creating beauty and conversation—for everyone.
“In Sheboygan, we have an incredibly diverse community. But I think that sometimes we gravitate towards people that look like us or sound like us or think like us,” Tinker says.
“Museums have a right to help to expose children and families to things that are different from our day-to-day and to open up those conversations,” she adds. “And what better way to do that than bringing in an artist . . . who can teach about these mythical alebrijes and to talk about color and design and magic?”