High Desert Museum
November 18, 2023, 1:00pm – 4:00pm

Music, games, piñatas, oh my! Artist Justin Favela’s event Family Fiesta celebrated Latinx communities of Central Oregon with activities for all ages at the High Desert Museum.

Free with Museum admission, this event featured Central Oregon-specific games, piñatas, papel picado making (a traditional Mexican decorative craft created by cutting elaborate designs into sheets of tissue paper), food and music. The event was in connection with the High Desert Museum exhibition Favela created called Vistas del Cielo, a colorful mural made of piñata paper.

Members of the Central Oregon community were encouraged to take part in the tradition by attending Family Fiesta with Favela and his family. Various community groups across the region joined the fun, crafting games and piñatas for the party.

Part of Vámonos Outside, Camp Chica, an organization that provides bilingual adventure camps for elementary-aged girls in Central Oregon, designed their own version of Lotería for Family Fiesta. The Spanish word for “lottery,” Lotería is a traditional game of chance that’s similar to bingo but played with a deck of cards. Camp Chica’s cards were specifically designed with Central Oregon in mind including much of the Museum’s wildlife.

Another group, ¡AVANZA!, used the same materials Favela utilized in his creation of Vistas del Cielo to construct hand-made piñatas ranging from a bull to a statue in Mexico City and a Cheetos box. These piñatas were display and later destroyed during the event. The goal of ¡AVANZA! is to encourage Latinx youth to graduate from high school, pursue higher education, obtain rewarding careers and contribute to their communities.

Alongside the Lotería from Camp Chica and piñatas from ¡AVANZA!, Museum visitors also created their own papel picado — a traditional artform using paper and chisels to construct intricate designs for celebrations. The artform began in the Aztec culture and became well known in San Salvado Huixcolotla in the state of Puebla in Mexico. In the creation of these papel picado, attendees learned about recurring themes in this artform and designed their own version to take home.

Family Fiesta is a celebration with Justin Favela and his family! In this ongoing series of performances, the public is encouraged to participate in the celebration firsthand by enjoying food, drinks, music, games and piñata time. The events are taken out of the traditional context of park outings or backyard cookouts and performed in unconventional locations challenging people's expectations of a fiesta, and at the same time, dismantling notions of place and institutional inclusion.