There’s an art to nightlife. The right space, music, and concept can bring people who might never otherwise interact together — it can challenge norms, spark new movements and even transform cities. In short: nightlife can be the petri dish where new creative movements are grown.
With that in mind, ABSOLUT has launched “ABSOLUT Locals” as part of the Transform Today campaign, which taps local artists in cities all over the world, and challenges them to transform neighborhood spaces into innovative art-meets-nightlife experiences. The brand seems to have put a lot of effort into aligning itself with the arts community over the last couple of years, and recent collaborations with forward-thinking artists like Woodkid, Rafael Grampá and Yiqing Yin have set a high bar for the ways brands can work with the creative community.
Tonight, San Antonio will play host to the latest edition of the Absolut Locals project, and this event in particular piqued our interest because of the featured artist: Cruz Ortiz. For more than 10 years, Ortiz has been capturing the bi-cultural flavors of South Texas with Spanglish-inflected art works across several mediums: print, performance, film, wheatpaste murals, ephemeral street sculptures, and even guerilla radio broadcasts. He’s also the man behind the jagged, colorful posters for the Pearl’s Échale! Latino Music Estyles concert series, which featured many of the artists we regularly cover here at Remezcla.
Cruz will act as centerpiece and curator of the event, taking place at the Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum and hosted by fashionista Burgundy Wood. Below is a round-up of what you can expect (reader’s digest version: sweet interactive art + good music + food + dranks).
Interactive Art:
Ortiz has fashioned a screen printing station that he’s dubbed the “Printing Makina,” where party-goers can get unique prints celebrating the local food, urban legends, and characters of San Antonio screen-printed onto t-shirts, sweatshirts, tote-bags, pillow cases — whatever they bring.
Good Music:
The music line-up for tomorrow will cover a range of genres that can best be encapsulated by the umbrella term “booty music”. Hometown global bass hero Sonora Longoria will DJ and has curated a night of performers that includes barrio big band Bombasta (this unintentional alliteration could not be avoided), and Steven Lee Moya.
Snacks:
Ana Fernandez, the brains behind beloved food truck “The Institute of Chili,” will be serving up treats for partygoers. Her chili was voted #1 in America by Food & Wine Magazine in 2013, so if ya don’t know now ya know. The truck is also home to Ana’s famous “Chamoy City Limits” snowcones, which will be spiked with Absolut for this event. And really, what is the point of snowcones if they’re not spiked amirite.