Sugar Face by Victor Cartagena

3D Model

Sugar and water, 2017

From the We Feed You exhibit currently on at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History.

“Victor met Maurillo Maravilla through his relationship with the United Farm Workers (UFW). Maurillo was a sugar beet farmer in the Salinas Valley who worked alongside labor activist Cesar Chavez. The UFW began advocating for farmworkers’ rights in the early sixties in response to dismal labor conditions in California. Maurillo shared how laborers would chew on raw sugar beets just to get enough calories to get through another day of harvest. For Sugar Face, Victor recreated Maurillo’s face in sugar to memorialize those who labored to produce this cash crop.”