Nuestra Casa Exhibition Project

This project uses art in an effort to humanise TB - raising awareness about how it affects individuals' lives and, hopefully, generating action. It began as a conversation between University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) Centennial Museum Director Dr. Bill Wood and Dr. Eva Moya about how to reengage the community of the Paso del Norte Region in Texas, US, in the social and public health issues of TB and HIV/AIDS. They then collaborated with Damien Schumann, a photojournalist and social activist who had constructed "The TB/HIV Shack" in the style of a typical South African, low-income dwelling to raise awareness about one of the settings where TB and HIV/AIDS coexist. During several months of planning and field work, Schumann - with help from persons affected by TB and TB Photovoice participants (a photo documentation methodology), health providers from health authorities, and community-based organisations - visited first one US city and then four Mexican border cities: El Paso, Ciudad Juárez, Tijuana, Reynosa, and Matamoros. The purpose was for Schumann to live at these sites and experience the TB situation and its psychosocial context and to be able to capture and bring this reality to life.

The results of these visits, interviews, testimonies, photographs, and personal items from individuals affected by TB were incorporated into Nuestra Casa and became part of a mobile exhibit that was launched from the UTEP campus in 2009. The tour continued through Mexico in partnership with the National TB Program in Mexico and the support of the State TB Programs in Quintana Roo, Oaxaca, Tamaulipas, and Tijuana, ending at the Global Odyssey Museum at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, US, in 2010. Visitors to the exhibitions were invited to compose inspirational messages and reflections on the exhibition on "trapitos" (small pieces of fabric) as a record of the impact of the exhibition. Moya brought faculty members, staff, and students across campus to the initiative; together, they worked to analyse the trapitos as a window into how people think and feel about TB and how their perceptions were impacted by the exhibit. The work of these students has become an integral component of Nuestra Casa, The Exhibition, which is on display at the UTEP Centennial Museum from January 17 - December 6 2012. It includes 5 major components:

1. "Tendederos" (clothes lines) of trapitos - Each of the floor to ceiling pieces of draped cloth (the tendederos) contain between 8 and 10 small, napkin-size pieces of cloth (the trapitos) with the impressions, thoughts, reactions, blessings, and sometimes well-wishes of those who visited the exhibit during its 2009-10 tour written on them.
2. The Casa, which - among other features - includes a viewing station for an approximately 20-minute video documenting the history and tour of the Nuestra Casa Project.
3. A tour photo-collage - Short quotes from student analysis of the messages written on the trapitos provide insights into how visitors to the exhibition responded in different cities on the tour. A corresponding QR (Quick Response) code enables visitors to use their mobile devices to access the complete student analyses of the trapitos (Student Trapito Analyses or STAs) on the Nuestra Casa website.
4. 10 photo-stories - A glimpse into the lives and struggles of ten people who have been touched by TB or who know someone or have a loved one with the disease. The photos have no label, only a QR code.
5. An in-gallery computer station where museum visitors may access and contribute their own online exhibition content. The station is designed to create a seamless connection between the gallery installation and the online material and social media such as Facebook where anyone may contribute their perspectives or comment on, "like", or share the content contributed by others.

In addition, over the course of 2012, the Nuestra Casa team has led the development of a schedule of workshops, events, presentations, and other events in an effort to refocus the Paso del Norte community on TB.

Additional links for more information:

• Click here to see the original Nuestra Casa.
• Click here to see the Shack.
• Click here to access the TB Photovoice website.

TB, HIV