Published September 17, 2024 at 1:59 PM CDT
A new exhibit titled “The Other Side of the Mirror” features 23 San Antonio artists in Querétaro, Mexico.
Co-curator Kathy Sosa said the project is all about art, but it’s also all about identity.
“When you’re looking in this mirror, you’re looking at someone who might look like yourself,” Sosa explained. “But their experience is different. The cuisine is different. The culture is different. So, it’s a peek into the other side of the mirror to see what people who are like me in many ways. How are they like me? And how are they different? And how do they express their identity?”
Kathy and Lionel Sosa’s work on this exhibition stretched 725 miles from San Antonio all the way to Querétaro.
“We discovered about three years ago what very, very few people in San Antonio know: the city of Querétaro, Mexico,” Lionel Sosa said. “It was there that Franciscan monks were trained to build missions in San Antonio, so that they could spread Christianity, and they wound up building our five missions, including the Alamo. So if it weren’t Querétaro, there would be no missions, no Alamo, and therefore no San Antonio.”
The exhibition has also resulted in a documentary to be played in four nights on KLRN, San Antonio’s PBS station.
“We interviewed about 50 people, artists, experts, historians, people who are telling the story of the Alamo, but we’re not going to just tell the story about the Battle of the Alamo, but the entire 300 year story of the Alamo, who was responsible for its building, how it led to the creation of San Antonio,” Lionel Sosa said.
The Sosas add that many take totally for granted our close relationship with Mexico and how that relationship is the envy of many countries.
“We’re encouraging people to understand how close and how treasured this relationship should be,” Kathy Sosa said. “We talk about what’s going on in the world and how lucky we are in the United States because we don’t have enemies on our borders.”
Learn more on the art exhibit and the four-part documentary at OtherSideOfTheMirror.com.
