It is Edwardo García’s voice, the intensity of his perceptions, and the melodic nuances of his music, stories, and poetry that bring to life the eclectic online oasis of Tres Tekuanis (trestekuanis.com).
An innovative moving image creative, García, addresses a wide range of topics including the preservation of downtown’s historic architecture by “reclaiming and reactivating public spaces through ephemeral musical performances and light interventions that transform buildings and surrounding natural elements.”
He staged such an intervention at the corner of Convent and Farragut at night, illuminating with blue light what had been the downtown J.C. Penney building (now Factory2U), calling attention to a once-thriving department store that is now in the inventory of old buildings that inform the history of Laredo’s pre-mall Central Business District.
The electronic percussion music he made with a drum machine was accompanied by Vicky Ramos (Harmonic Cyclopean) on a Korg Synthesizer and Maritza Bautista on a Moog Theramini.
García performed in a ghille suit, which he said “references our origins in the natural world and highlights the tension between human nature and the urban landscapes we inhabit.”
Another of the powerful offerings of Tres Tekuanis is Summer Losses, cataloged on the site as part of the Resonance and Passage project. The live performance was recorded at sunset on Hwy. 83 South. The guitarist seated in silhouette on the roadside plays an original composition that is a requiem to loss, while the traffic racing past in silence is the transient world moving on. García said that Summer Losses is a personal expression of how we relate to space while processing memory, loss, and existential questions through sound, music, and the spoken word.
Asked about the goals of Tres Tekuanis, García cited the first as, “Wanting people who are in pain — their own or the pain they carry to care for others — to know they are not alone.
“The second is to produce work that allows us to understand how important it is to care for each other.
“And the third is to care for where we live,” he said, adding, “We can reimagine Laredo in all the aspects of caring: a cleaner cityscape; a cleaner downtown; government responsive to the needs of many and not just a few; traffic that flows; sustainable, innovative measures to revive downtown; and each of us personally taking responsibility for putting trash and litter where they belong. How a place looks and what it offers in art, music, culture, and historic preservation — these are matters of civic pride, as are green spaces and gardens,” he said.
Every bit as edgy as the environments García creates for Tres Tekuanis with sound, light, and purpose is the underlying depth of emotion, tenderness, and resilience that is rooted in the wonder he felt making Laredo his home again after 20 years in Queretaro.
It is rooted, too — deeply, palpably in those he said most influenced his life — his mother, María del Carmen, and his grandmother, María Casilda and the care and kindness she invested in his development.
Tres Tekuanis, a reflection of the consummate professional historic preservationist who creates it, sounds the call to learn from the historic and cultural footnotes of this City — the ones that are written, the ones carried on our language, the ones anchored to deep relationships, and the ones edified in the vast vault of the architectural museum of the downtown cityscape.
(For more visit trestekuanis.com)
