Sonideros, cumbia, and art spaces share something in common: all three should be for the community. The Cumbia De Mi Tierra exhibit at Human Resources L.A. in Chinatown proved that point on its opening night, Saturday April 11.

The community packed the art space and volunteer organization, or rather human resource space (which is definitely a play on corporate terminology and ideology), for hours as they danced, vibed, and celebrated the cumbia sonidero scene with music and art.

Here is info of the exhibit, which will run through April, from an IG post promoting it:

Cumbia de mi Tierra is an art exhibit and installation that celebrates cumbia music from Mexico through ephemera, material culture, and art. 

In this exhibition we are promoting independent labels including Discos Dancing, Discos Room, and Discos Lambda released records of Mexican cumbia groups alongside bootleg compilations of South American cumbia. 

Curated by artist Gary Garay, the exhibit brings together collector Jose Hernández, photographer Stefan Ruiz, and artist Yair Sarmiento. Drawing on the extensive collection of Jose Hernández, Gary Garay tells a story of cumbia sonidera in Mexico through this archive. Consisting of flyers, posters, stickers, sonidero business cards, and cassette mixtapes and cassette recordings of specific bailes from the 1980s and 1990s Mexico City constitute a counter-history of print and graphic design. 

A dancer and record collector, Hernández is an organic archivist of the cumbia sonidero scene who grew up in Mexico City and in the 1980s and 1990s and built his massive collection around the various ephemera of the scene.

Garay documented, archived, and curated Jose Hernández’s vast collection—which had been spread between California and his mother’s house in Mexico City. Inspired by the collection, Garay’s new work amplifies details that matter to diggers—record label logos, album cover photographs of dancers and sonideros—by screen printing on materials such as silver, tarps, and brick.

Click through the slideshow below to see images from opening night: