Welcome to Our Virtual Exhibition:
Homeland and the Threshold Between
This virtual exhibition was assembled by the students of Borderlands: Latinx Art and Visual Cultures - a Spring 2021 course in Theory and History of Art and Design (THAD) at the Rhode Island School of Design, taught by Dr. Sean Nesselrode Moncada.
In this virtual exhibition, the students of Borderlands: Latinx Art and Visual Cultures introduce numerous themes and case studies focusing on the Latinx experience - especially those in regards to reclaiming memory, voice, and land. Over the course of this class, we have explored the work and conversations coming out of Latinx communities across the Americas over the past several decades and through the past century - engaging many artists working in exchange with the border and how these artists reconcile their relationship. Showcasing the subthemes Rewriting the Canon, Memory, Land and Body, and Homeland, attention is called to feminist, queer, and alternative movements within Latinx communities - as well as the voices of BIPOC, as activists and artists often overlooked or oversimplified within the art world.
In order to truly recognize “the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country - a border culture,” we broke down the barriers of what has commonly been considered important to the Anglo-American Institution, focusing on a broader consideration of all dialogic and cultural contributions across Latinx communities. In conjunction with many of the artists we consider in the Borderlands, we discussed a number of textual works including those by Gloria Anzaldúa, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and Arlene Dávila - cross referencing them with films and television from the '40s to the present, popular figures like Selena and Edward James Olmos, news and magazines, as well as video clips and even Art21. The work we see is submerged in nepantla - the Nahuatl word for ‘in-betweenness" - often presenting topics binding the broadly relatable and incredibly specific simultaneously. The characteristics of such “a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary,” directs and bridges the numerous works but far from defines them. (1)
In Rewriting the Canon, we reflect on these Eurocentric written histories and imperial narratives that silence all other voices, and we work to amplify the unheard for a more inclusive and intersectional understanding of historical and intercultural dialogue. In the second subtheme, we consider the temporal and spatial nature of Memory, alongside the constant dialogue between, the individual memories and experiences of various artists, and the collective recollection of their communities. We work to unpack and reconsider this state of constant transformation while observing its intersections in the tension with the border and displacement from homeland experience by much of the broader Latinx community. In the subtheme Land and the Body, we are called to reflect on “traditional” landscapes and the Eurocentric histories attached to them, and how nature exists in relation to oneself. We showcase how various artists use different mediums to convey the relationship between their marginalized bodies and colonized homelands. Lastly, for the subtheme Homeland, we examine the Mexican Cession of 1848, which shifted land divisions and ‘homelands,’ and the historical and current impact of the sociopolitical systems around the border on Latinx communities across America.
We are excited and humbled to invite you to wander through our website and browse each subtheme. Thank you to Sean, for organizing this class, and to all the students for their collaboration and research.
Madeline Warshaw, Raisa Cruz, and Jack Kostyshen — Design and Structures Team
In order to truly recognize “the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country - a border culture,” we broke down the barriers of what has commonly been considered important to the Anglo-American Institution, focusing on a broader consideration of all dialogic and cultural contributions across Latinx communities. In conjunction with many of the artists we consider in the Borderlands, we discussed a number of textual works including those by Gloria Anzaldúa, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and Arlene Dávila - cross referencing them with films and television from the '40s to the present, popular figures like Selena and Edward James Olmos, news and magazines, as well as video clips and even Art21. The work we see is submerged in nepantla - the Nahuatl word for ‘in-betweenness" - often presenting topics binding the broadly relatable and incredibly specific simultaneously. The characteristics of such “a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary,” directs and bridges the numerous works but far from defines them. (1)
In Rewriting the Canon, we reflect on these Eurocentric written histories and imperial narratives that silence all other voices, and we work to amplify the unheard for a more inclusive and intersectional understanding of historical and intercultural dialogue. In the second subtheme, we consider the temporal and spatial nature of Memory, alongside the constant dialogue between, the individual memories and experiences of various artists, and the collective recollection of their communities. We work to unpack and reconsider this state of constant transformation while observing its intersections in the tension with the border and displacement from homeland experience by much of the broader Latinx community. In the subtheme Land and the Body, we are called to reflect on “traditional” landscapes and the Eurocentric histories attached to them, and how nature exists in relation to oneself. We showcase how various artists use different mediums to convey the relationship between their marginalized bodies and colonized homelands. Lastly, for the subtheme Homeland, we examine the Mexican Cession of 1848, which shifted land divisions and ‘homelands,’ and the historical and current impact of the sociopolitical systems around the border on Latinx communities across America.
We are excited and humbled to invite you to wander through our website and browse each subtheme. Thank you to Sean, for organizing this class, and to all the students for their collaboration and research.
Madeline Warshaw, Raisa Cruz, and Jack Kostyshen — Design and Structures Team
- Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987), 3–4.
