Choosing the right media for your needs

María Teresa Rojas is the founder of the art residency Materia Gris in La Paz, Bolivia. Unlike many other programs, Materia Gris doesn’t launch open calls for the artists.

Materia Gris prefers to work with direct invitations to people and projects. It is also why the residency doesn’t have a website and makes most of its communication through the social network Facebook. “Many people say that I don't have an archive of everything that has happened, that I should have a web page, that I should already have a publication,” explains María Teresa Rojas. “I have not known how to take advantage of the fact that perhaps each artist who came here should have built his or her own space on the web. There have been about 50 or 60 artists. It would be very difficult for me today to summon them, sit them down and ask them for that”, adds the founder.

In our opinion, the creation of an archive is an essential part of the residency’s memory, and unfortunately, social networks are a bit difficult to use as a kind of archive as they work more on the immediate actuality. Nonetheless, she is now thinking to edit a publication that would retrace the history of the residency.

If María Teresa Rojas saves up her energy on the web, she does try to be more proactive with her network of cultural agents. “I know in the end with whom I have to work, with whom I have to connect, with whom I have to discuss, and I do it independently of that web”, indicates the founder. “I get personally involved with people. If I see that there is a project that interests me, I write it down, I invite them, I call them and I do not necessarily expect an immediate result from that first meeting with the person I am interested in working with, but I do want them to come and think,” concludes María Teresa Rojas.