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"A Space in Which People Are Free To Move and Birds To Fly" : Mark Menjívar
Sep
13
to Oct 25
Upcoming

"A Space in Which People Are Free To Move and Birds To Fly" : Mark Menjívar

A Space in Which People Are Free To Move and Birds To Fly
Mark Menjívar
Curated by Leslie Moody Castro

September 13th - October 25th, 2025
Members Preview: Saturday, September 13th, 6-7pm (Become a Member!)
Public Reception: Saturday, September 13th, 7-11pm (Please RSVP)
On view Saturdays after September 13th, 12-6pm
5419 Glissman Road, Austin, TX 78702

A Space in Which People Are Free To Move and Birds To Fly is a site-specific installation by Mark Menjívar curated by Leslie Moody Castro and brought to life with various collaborative partners. 

Based on a 1972 sound piece by John Cage, the installation uses the annual migratory patterns of birds in the Americas to invite visitors to reflect on the political nature of borders. A series of eight newly created sound pieces related to the migration and movement of both birds and humans will randomly flow between eight speakers located across the Co-Lab property. A game of chance performed by Menjívar with visitors will determine the composition. An accompanying publication with details about each of the sound pieces and collaborators will be available for visitors to take with them. 

A Space in Which People Are Free To Move and Birds To Fly will coincide with the fall migration of neotropical birds flying back to Central and South America, crossing entire continents and geographies on their return home. Programming during the installation will include artist-led bird walks, musical performances, DJ sets and more. 

Mark Menjívar is a San Antonio based artist and Associate Professor in the Interdisciplinary School for Engagement at the University of Texas at San Antonio. His art practice primarily consists of creating participatory projects while being rooted in photography, oral history, archives, and social action. He attended McLennan Community College, holds a BA in Social Work from Baylor University and an MFA in Social Practice from Portland State University. Mark has engaged in projects at venues including the El Museo del Barrio, Rothko Chapel, Eastern State Penitentiary, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, FOTOFEST, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Krannert Art Museum, The Puerto Rican Museum of Art and Culture, Sala Diaz, The Contemporary at Blue Star.

A Space in Which People Are Free To Move and Birds To Fly is part of Mark’s project, La Misma Canción (The Same Song), an ongoing, multi-sited project that uses drawing, textiles, research practices, bird walks, festivals, and installations to explore migration, ecology, sound studies, land ownership, culture, mutual aid and more.

Leslie Moody Castro is an independent curator and writer whose practice is based on itinerancy and collaboration. She has produced, organized, and collaborated on projects in Mexico and the United States for nearly two decades. She is committed to creating moments of exchange and dialogue within exhibitions, is a co-founder of Unlisted Projects Residency, and Co-Lab Projects, and in 2022 served as inaugural curatorial fellow and curator in residence at New Mexico State University and Casa Otro Residency, respectively. She has been awarded two grants from the National Endowment of the Arts for her curatorial projects and a fellowship from the Department of State for her research on borders. Moody Castro has participated in numerous residencies including the Narva Artist Residency, Estonia, The Galveston Artist Residency, Casa Lü Residency, Tepoztlán, MARSO CDMX, and Fountainhead, Miami. She has curated biennials including the Amarillo Museum of Art Biennial in 2021, The Texas Biennial in 2018, and was co-curator of the Aurora Biennial in 2024.  Moody Castro was guest editor of Glasstire Magazine from 2021—2024, is the founder of AtravesArte and believes Mariachis make everything better.

This exhibition has been made possible through the generosity of Dianne Garcia, Barry Stone, Paul Stautinger, Porch Swing Orchestra, Jerry and Norma Stillwell, Michael Moody-Garcia, Record ATX, the entire Co-Lab team, and funded by a generous grant from H-E-B, Texas Commission on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, Individual Donors, and Members like You!

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Co-Lab Projects Presents: Cowboy XMAS Part Deux
Dec
14
7:00 PM19:00
Upcoming

Co-Lab Projects Presents: Cowboy XMAS Part Deux

Co-Lab Projects Presents:
Cowboy XMAS Part Deux

FUNdraiser and Membership Drive: Saturday, December 14th, 7-11pm
Members get in free, sliding scale tickets available for non-members starting at $10

On December 14th we are ringing in the holidays with an anti-soiree, part two continuing the thread from last year's holiday party, a Cowboy Christmas-themed casual fundraiser and membership drive benefitting our spring programs.

Featuring our group exhibition “Collective Tales in a Concrete Garden”, music by Sentimental Family Band and MADISONS, stage production by Mapache Entertainment, visuals by hyperreal film club, mechanical bull rides, Christmas Carol Karaoke with our KJ and MC Rebecca Marino, food by Shhmaltz, a charity cheer bar sponsored by Austin Beerworks, LALO Tequila, Tito's Handmade Vodka, Topo Chico, and more TBA!

Similar to our past FUNdraisers, all funds raised — whether from new memberships, tickets to the event, bar donations, or food sales — will be matched by one of our generous donors, community business partners, or event sponsors! It’s all the fun of a holiday party while doubling your donations and impact, which means the more you give the more we are able to support artists in our community and continue delivering the programming y’all know and love. Matching funds for Cowboy XMAS are provided by Elisa and Joel Sumner, Daryl Kunik, Sheehy Fine Art Services, Carolina and Sergio Alcocer, Kingsburry Museum Crating, JD DiFabbio, and anonymous donors. 

Over the past 16 years, Co-Lab has produced 400+ exhibitions and performances showcasing hundreds of local, national, and international artists. In addition to its primary programming, Co-Lab is an established and revered gathering space for community building through its free educational programs, events, collaborations, and participation in regional and international fairs and festivals.

We look forward to continuing this work with your support! Help us help artists by coming out to the event on December 14th! To get involved, donate, or contribute to this holiday fundraiser please write us at hello@co-labprojects.org!

Cheers,
The Co-Lab Team


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“Epiphany” Artist Talk moderated by Justine Kurland
Oct
19
7:00 PM19:00
Front Page, Upcoming

“Epiphany” Artist Talk moderated by Justine Kurland

Photo curtesy of Rosemary Haynes

“Epiphany” Artist Talk 
Featuring Justine Kurland in conversation with Michelle Marchesseault, Diana Welch, Kate Csillagi, and curator Alyssa Taylor Wendt

Saturday, October 19th, 7pm, (please RSVP)
Co-Lab Projects, 5419 Glissman Rd, Austin, TX 78702

Join us at the Culvert Gallery for another look at “Epiphany” and a conversation moderated by esteemed artist Justine Kurland. In this talk, Justine hopes to open a discussion about themes and processes in each artist's work and in relation to one another. Justine echos the question underlying the exhibition “Epiphany” and the mission of Co-Lab Projects- How do we support artists engaged in radical experimentation and play?

Justine Kurland is an artist known for her utopian photographs of American landscapes and the fringe communities, both real and imagined, that inhabit them. Her early work comprises photographs, taken during many cross-country road trips, that counter the masculinist mythology of the American landscape, offering a radical female imaginary in its place. Her recent series of collages, SCUMB Manifesto, continues to make space for women by transforming books by canonized male photographers through destruction and reparation. Kurland’s work has been exhibited at museums and galleries in the United States and abroad. www.justinekurland.com

Diana Welch is a multidisciplinary artist based in Austin, TX, whose body of work spans sculpture, music, and writing. A self-taught ceramicist, she has exhibited in the US and Europe as one-half of the collaborative Mother of God. Her vessels reference classical ancient clay forms imbued with unexpected flare and subversion through interaction, collaboration, and functionality. As a musician, she has released several recordings, both solo and as a member of the band Stormshelter. A reporter, editor, and author, her extensive writing has been reviewed in Vanity Fair and elsewhere.

Kate Csillagi is an interdisciplinary artist hailing from Austin, TX. She attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Evergreen State College where she studied fiber art, printmaking,  and bookmaking. Her work has evolved over the years to include drawing, mural work, fabric tapestry, and installation. She was also a founding member of ICOSA, an artist-run collective and gallery in East Austin. Csillagi’s work is disruptive and whimsical, constructing unexpected narratives that star her anthropomorphic characters within supernatural scenes. Her work dismantles reality through watery dreamscapes and colorful illustrations, providing refuge from the monotony of modernity. 

Michelle Marchesseault splits time between Austin, TX, where she paints, and New York City, where she designs art and interiors for restaurants, television, movies, and the stage. She attended Herron School of Art in Indianapolis for painting and has been creating visuals and environments for over 20 years. The majority of Marchessault’s work fluctuates between studies of color and design that she called “twist” paintings and lush mannerist landscapes where nature is simultaneously gushing with beauty and brutality.

Mimi Bowman was born in Texas in 1989. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 2022 with a degree in archaeology and Middle Eastern studies. Bowman is currently abroad pursuing an MA in archaeology at the University College of London, hoping to work in Karez rehabilitation in northern Iraq. In 2023, she curated Oshay Green and Isabel Legate’s dual exhibition Holometabolism at Martha’s Contemporary, and her collaborative video work with Jonny Negron was included in Electricity · Shadow at Château Shatto.

Alyssa Taylor Wendt is a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and curator working in Detroit and Austin, Texas. Her recent projects address mysticism, the architecture of memory, and the decodified strata of history using video, ceramics, sculpture, painting, and installation. Earning her MFA from Bard, she has shown and performed internationally since 2004. She recently completed a second master’s degree in museum studies from Harvard and plans to open a small non-profit museum of cultural artifacts in 2026.

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SAVE THE DATE!!! Co-Lab’s Super Sweet 16
Jul
13
to Jul 14
Upcoming

SAVE THE DATE!!! Co-Lab’s Super Sweet 16

Co-Lab’s Super Sweet 16
A summer membership drive and FUNdraiser

Sponsored by Paul and Ilene Barr, Sheehy Fine Art Services, Sergio and Carolina Alcocer, JD DiFabbio, Nomad Sound, Misc Rentals, Saucehaus, Clay Pigeon, Austin Beerworks, LALO Tequila, and Richard’s Rainwater

Saturday, July 13th, 8pm-midnight
Members get in free, sliding scale tickets available for non-members starting at $10



On July 13th we are celebrating Co-Lab’s Sweet 16th by throwing ourselves a fierce birthday party in the form of a membership drive and fundraiser benefiting our fall programming. Featuring our summer group exhibition “Inter Being”, live music by Pinkstar and Tropicana Joe, a ‘Super Sweet 16’ themed Karaoke stage, water balloon fights, tiaras, food by Clay Pigeon, and a spoiled rotten bar sponsored by Austin Beerworks, LALO Tequilla, and Richard's Rainwater.

Similar to our past fundraisers, all funds raised — whether from new memberships, tickets to the event, bar donations, or food sales — will be matched by one of our generous donors, community business partners, or event sponsors! It’s all the fun of a birthday party while doubling your donations and impact, which means the more you give the more we are able to support artists in our community and continue delivering the programming y’all know and love.

Over the past 16 years, Co-Lab has produced over 400 exhibitions and performances showcasing hundreds of local, national, and international artists. In addition to its primary programming, Co-Lab is an established and revered gathering space for community building through its free programs, events, collaborations, and participation in regional and international fairs and festivals.

We look forward to continuing this work with your support! Help us help artists by coming out to the event on July 13th! To get involved, donate, or contribute to this summer fundraiser please write us at hello@co-labprojects.org!

Cheers,
The Co-Lab Team



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Summer Open Call
Apr
25
to May 26
Front Page, Current, Upcoming

Summer Open Call

  • Google Calendar ICS

I WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER II
An open call for new artists

Open call dates: April 25th - May 25th, 2024
Application review and notification: End of May
Exhibition dates: June 15th - July 20th, 2024

Co-Lab Projects invites all Austin area artists who have NOT physically exhibited with Co-Lab in the past to apply for this open call exhibition. The application is open to individual artists, curators, collectives, or other groups who fit this description.

Submitted/proposed works may be in any medium including but not limited to: installation, video/film, performance, 2D and 3D static works, social practice, etc. Please consider the installation logistics and limitations of the culvert gallery, for example the space is not temperature or humidity controlled which means it is not necessarily an ideal environment for works on paper or photography. If you have specific concerns we’re happy to answer any questions before you submit.

Artworks do not have to be from any specific time frame. The open call title is tongue in cheek, however we do encourage applying with semi-recent work and/or new proposed work.

Works will be reviewed and selected by the Board of Directors and the format of the exhibition will be determined by these selections. For example we may decide to pair two artists who submitted separately, or build a multiple artist exhibition from several applicants, or a large group exhibition may take shape. The format will depend largely on what we receive from applicants.

Please following the link below to apply. What are you waiting for huh?!

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Co-Lab Book Club
Oct
13
to Nov 13
Current, Front Page, Upcoming

Co-Lab Book Club

  • Google Calendar ICS

Co-Lab Book Club
Led by Leslie Moody Castro in conjunction with Ana Segovia’s exhibition Boy’s Ranch

October 13th — November 13th, 2023
This and all future Book Club editions are FREE for Members

Book Club members will discuss via Discord and will be invited to an in-person conversation with Leslie Moody Castro and Ana Segovia on November 13th.

We will be reading both of the following books, Cartucho is very short and will not take long to finish.


- Book 1 -

Cartucho by Nellie Campobello
55 pages
Buy the book here

Cartucho: Tales of the Struggle in Northern Mexico (Cartucho: Relatos de la lucha en el Norte de México) is a semi-autobiographical short novel, or novella set in the Mexican Revolution and originally published in 1931. It consists of a series of vignettes that draw on Campobello's memories of her childhood and adolescence (and the stories her mother told her) in Northern Mexico during the war. Though long overlooked, it is now celebrated, among other reasons because it is, as Mexican critic Elena Poniatowska points out, "the only real vision of the Mexican revolution written by a woman."

About the Author:
Nellie (or Nelly) Francisca Ernestina Campobello Luna (November 7, 1900 – July 9, 1986) was a Mexican writer, notable for having written one of the few chronicles of the Mexican Revolution from a woman's perspective: Cartucho, which chronicles her experience as a young girl in Northern Mexico at the height of the struggle between forces loyal to Pancho Villa and those who followed Venustiano Carranza. She moved to Mexico City in 1923, where she spent the rest of her life and associated with many of the most famous Mexican intellectuals and artists of the epoch. Like her half-sister Gloria, a well-known ballet dancer, she was also known as a dancer and choreographer. She was the director of the Mexican National School of Dance.


- Book 2 -

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
302 pages
Buy the book here

All the Pretty Horses is a novel by American author Cormac McCarthy published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992. It was a bestseller, winning both the U.S. National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. It is the first of McCarthy's "Border Trilogy".

About the Author:
Cormac McCarthy (born Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr.; July 20, 1933 – June 13, 2023) was an American writer who authored twelve novels, two plays, five screenplays, and three short stories, spanning the Western and post-apocalyptic genres. He was known for his graphic depictions of violence and his unique writing style, recognizable by a sparse use of punctuation and attribution. McCarthy is widely regarded as one of the greatest American novelists. McCarthy was born in Providence, Rhode Island, although he was raised primarily in Tennessee. In 1951, he enrolled in the University of Tennessee, but dropped out to join the U.S. Air Force. His debut novel, The Orchard Keeper, was published in 1965. Awarded literary grants, McCarthy was able to travel to southern Europe, where he wrote his second novel, Outer Dark (1968). Suttree (1979), like his other early novels, received generally positive reviews, but was not a commercial success. A MacArthur Fellowship enabled him to travel to the American Southwest, where he researched and wrote his fifth novel, Blood Meridian (1985). Although it initially garnered a lukewarm critical and commercial reception, it has since been regarded as his magnum opus, with some labeling it the Great American Novel.

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[OPEN CALL] I (WANT TO) KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER
Jun
20
to Jul 31
Upcoming

[OPEN CALL] I (WANT TO) KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER

  • Google Calendar ICS

I (WANT TO) KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER
An open call for new artists

Open call dates: June 20th - July 31st, 2023
Application review: first week of August
Notification: second week of August
Exhibition dates: September 9th - 23rd, 2023

Co-Lab Projects invites all Austin area artists who have not physically exhibited with us in the past to apply for this open call exhibition. The application is open to individual artists, curators, collectives, or other groups who fit this description.

Submitted/proposed works may be in any medium including but not limited to: installation, video/film, performance, 2D and 3D static works, social practice, etc. Please consider the installation logistics and limitations of the culvert gallery, for example the space is not temperature or humidity controlled which means it is not necessarily an ideal environment for works on paper or photography. If you have specific concerns we’re happy to answer any questions before you submit.

Artworks do not have to be from any specific time frame. The open call title is tongue in cheek, however we do encourage applying with semi-recent work and/or new proposed work.

Works will be reviewed and selected by the Board of Directors and the format of the exhibition will be determined by these selections. For example we may decide to pair two artists who submitted separately, or build a multiple artist exhibition from several applicants, or a large group exhibition may take shape. The format will depend largely on what we receive from applicants.

View the application here and submit your ideas! What are you waiting for huh?!

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