Art Borderlands in Theory, Practice, and Teaching

Christen Sperry García is Associate Professor in the Department of Art Education at Florida State University, USA. From the San Diego/Tijuana border, García’s work is informed by borderlands, Chicane, and Latine theories. She is co-founder of the Nationwide Museum Mascot Project that has performed at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Lima, Peru; Museo Jumex, Mexico City; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; and Museo de Arte Moderno, Bogotá, Colombia. García has published in peer-reviewed journals including Art Education, The Drama Review, and Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy. She is co-editor of the book BIPOC Alliances: Building Community and Curricula (2023).Leslie C. Sotomayor II is a first-generation writer, artist, curator, and McNair scholar. She received her dual PhD from Penn State in Art Education and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. She centers intersectional Latine feminist themes in her work including Teaching In/Between: Curating Educational spaces Through Autohistoria-teoría and Conocimiento (2022), BIPOC Alliances: Building Communities and Curricula (2023), Nepantla & Feminist Art Education: Theorizing the In/Between (Latina/ x/ o) (2023), and My Ancestors in My Studio: Researching My Taíno Roots (2023). She is a Frederick Douglas Institute (FDI) Scholar and Assistant Professor of Art Education at Kutztown University, USA.

“Art Borderlands in Theory, Practice, and Teaching is the decolonial and interdisciplinary book of healing that we have been waiting for! I rewrote my syllabi as I read each chapter, applying Anzaldúan philosophy to teaching, theorizing about art, and art-making. Embracing the ambiguities, tensions, and contradictions of the borderlands, the authors make the case for a new pedagogy in art education. It's a survival tool for their students. Unless colonial logic and the deficit-model are desired by your art school, inhabitants of the borderlands no longer need to be left out of art school with this culturally sustaining resource.”- Karen Mary Davalos, Professor, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and author of Chicana/o Remix: Art and Errata Since the Sixties (NYU Press)“The authors draw from borderlands theories and lived experiences to guide art education practice to be inclusive of Latina/e/x and Chicana/o/x teaching frameworks. The book is significant to changing the course toward decolonizing art pedagogies, curricula, and syllabi, offering a must-needed resource on why and how to do so.”- Karen Keifer-Boyd, Ph.D., Professor of Art Education and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at The Pennsylvania State University“There's only one way to have a more polyvocal presence at the intersected table of contemporary art and its education. We need to have smart individuals, partners, and collaboratives adding their unique voices to the dynamic aggregate of the lived and archived experience, poquito a poquito. In Art Borderlands in Theory, Practice, and Teaching, Sotomayor and Garcia present us with an urgent creative work that does exactly that, chiseling away at broadly held academicisms that have invited us in, but mostly through the side door. Garcia and Sotomayor foreground our ways of knowing (talking, cooking, eating, making, closeness, proclamation, and in-betweeness) to present a one-of-a-kind Chicana/feminist/scholar/artist intertwinement, that engenders liberation and celebration everywhere from la sala through la cocina, then back and forth through the front, back, and side doors!”- Jorge Lucero, Professor of Art Education and Associate Dean for Research, College of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

• Introduction: Las Rajaduras (Gaps) and Los Puentes (Bridges) within Art EducationPART I: Theorizing Art Borderlands1 Framing Creative Acts through Chicana Feminist Epistemologies2 Nepantlando as Methodology3 Praxis: Epistemology of Testimonios, Cultural Memory, and De/colonization PART II: Making Art Borderlands 4 Visual Plática: An Act of Nepantlando 5 A Visual Plática en Dos Partes (Two Parts)6 Temporal Homes: Borders in the Body 7 Studio as Activating Healing: Latine Speculative Art with Jorge Elías Gil 8 Visual Translanguaging: From Los Doyers to Lonche 9 Zines de Nepantla: Autohistoria-teoría through the In-Between10 Food Nepantla: Cocin-epantla, Nepant-labeling, and Nepantla-magineryPART III: Teaching Art Borderlands 11 Latinx Thriving: Culturally Sustaining Arte Pedagogies12 Nepantlando Workshops13 Chicane and Latine Art Resources