The LCLAA Solidaridad Award recognizes national leaders who with their work, passion, courage and vision help advance an aggressive agenda to improve the conditions of all Latino workers. These leaders also engage in their daily work in the protection of the labor, human and civil rights of undocumented immigrants. 

This year’s Solidaridad Award was created by Edgar Endress, a Latino artist who is originally from Chile. The awards are based on a concept created by The Floating Lab Collective, who is a group of Metropolitan DC-based artists working collectively on performances, media art and research. The goal is to take art out of the gallery and into public space and dialogue. Floating Lab asks, “What happens when you use art to approach community and social issues?” and “How can artistic practice address issues as well as unite and foster understanding?”

The participating artists are a dynamic and flexible group that expands and contracts its size based on the project to be executed. In the past two years FLC has produced a series of projects that sought to raise positive awareness of immigrants in greater Washington DC, including a project in which day laborers were asked to create models of their dream houses, which were then widely exhibited in various public locations.

The Red Birds is the original concept for this year’s Solidaridad Award.  The concept is part of the FLC public art campaign to widely disseminate a graphic symbol designed to represent the historic and future aspirations of immigrants and labor forces in the United States. Red birds were chosen because they evoke migration, freedom and aspiration, as well as symbolize both individual and group identity.