Sharing an interest in archive materials, artists Angela Scardigno and Regina Perez Kamel decided to collaborate, resulting in Greetings from El Valle, a project that meets history with art.

 “Approaching ‘Magic Valley’ archive materials from the Museum of South Texas History through collage was a transformative experience. It taught us about the region we live in, made us reflect upon narratives and their relationship to place, and allowed us to think of ourselves as active agents in historical processes.”

By presenting each of their collage responses together, along with archive materials and artifacts, the artists invite the community to look at the past with eyes for the future.

Angela V. Scardigno

Angela V. Scardigno graduated as a Graphic Designer from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. While she attended the University, she took classes in several art workshops taught by masters such as Lautaro Fiszman, Aníbal Cedrón, and Carlos Terribili. In 2010, she moved to the United States, where she completed a Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in 2019 Scardigno has exhibited throughout the Rio Grande Valley, Argentina, and Slovenia, and her work has been featured in magazines such as Studio Visit (2018), Kolaj (2020), and Contemporary Collage Magazine (2022). She is a Program Specialist at the UTRGV Center for Advanced Manufacturing Innovation and Cyber Systems and lives and works in McAllen, Texas.

 Regina Perez Kamel

 Regina Perez Kamel was born in Mexico City. At age three, she moved to Tabasco, Mexico, where she spent her childhood. Then, in 2008, she moved to the Rio Grande Valley, where she attended high school and completed a Bachelor in Fine Arts with a double major in studio art and philosophy (2016) and a Masters in Interdisciplinary Studies with a focus in Art History (2021) at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). During her undergraduate degree, she recognized an interest in fashion and sustainability, which has influenced her educational path since, resulting in her decision to study textile artifacts for her master’s thesis. She is currently exploring textiles as a medium and field of research, reflecting on topics and logics that extend from them, such as community knowledge and collaborative processes.