Other Border Wall Podcast

In our surprise final finalé episode, we bring you the audio recording from the Artist Talk for the Border is a Weapon Exhibition, moderated by Jose Diaz - the former Chief Curator at the Andy Warhol Museum.  It took place February 22, 2022 over zoom to an audience of about 50-60 people.  All artists were present except Daniela Cavazos Madrgial and Tereneh Idia who were not available that evening.  At that point the exhibition The Border is a Weapon, curated by Gil Rocha at 937 Gallery in Pittsburgh, PA had been open almost a month and had been seen by thousands including the opening night that was packed and overflowing with people. This conversation flowed easily between the artists and Jose Diaz.  It serves now as an important historic document of a show that continues to grow and travel, most recently it was shown at the Laredo Center for the Arts, summer 2022, and will continue to the University of Syracuse later in 2023. Enjoy! And thank you for being part of our Other Border Wall Podcast series.  It has been a pleasure serving you in such creative and positive ways! For anyone interested in starting a podcast who has never done anything like this before, please seriously reach out to us.  We believe in the power of art and collaboration and doing things that seem nearly impossible! Find more at otherborderwallproject.com

In late October 2022 Tereneh, Leah and Jenn sat down for one last time to record our final episode for the Other Border Wall Podcast, now in its Third Season. We reflect, laugh, and remember not only this Podcast but all the work we have made together since 2017 as "Creative Resistance to Borders". So much has happened over these past five years - and we are now moving onto other projects but will always hold space and respect for the amazing people we met and worked with together as a collective. We feel so grateful for the work of building community in these many ways, and for all the support we have received. It has been an incredible journey and we wanted to hold space for it with this episode. As we sign off we want to encourage our listeners to stay in solidarity with the incredible work that inspired us and will continue to be a beacon for all of us: Border Angels https://instagram.com/borderangelsofficial Brushfire Press https://instagram.com/brushfirepress No Border Wall https://instagram.com/noborderwall_ltx Thanks so much for being with us during these five years of learning and creative resistance to borders.

Join us in our next interview with the artists from the exhibition THE BORDER IS A WEAPON, curated by Gil Rocha. Here, Jose Villalobos speaks with Tereneh Idia in an engaging and illuminating conversation about art, politics, tradition and resistance. José Villalobos grew up on the US/Mexico border in El Paso, TX. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Texas at San Antonio. He was awarded the Artist Lab Fellowship Grant for his work De La Misma Piel at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center.  Villalobos is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Painters & Sculptors Grant Award and Residency and the Tanne Foundation Award. His work has been exhibited in the nationally recognized exhibition Trans America/n: Gender, Identity, Appearance Today at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, TX; ArtPace, San Antonio, TX; San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX; NARS Foundation, New York, NY; the Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, TX; El Paso Museum of Art, TX; El Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and The Latino Cultural Center in Dallas, TX. He has two upcoming group exhibitions, one at the Phoenix Art Museum: Desert Rider, curated by Gilbert Vicario, and Xican-a.o.x. Body at The American Federation of Arts in New York curated by Marisa del Toro, Cecilia Fajardo-Hill and Gilbert Vicario. José Villalobos’s work is included in the collection of Mexic-arte Museum, Austin, TX, the City of San Antonio Public Collection, TX, Albright College, Reading, PA, and Soho House International in Austin, TX. Jose Villalobos is currently represented by Liliana Bloch Gallery. http://www.josevillalobosart.com/ https://www.instagram.com/josevillalobosart/ https://epma.art/ Recommended article: Defiant Braceros: How Migrant Workers Fought for Racial, Sexual, and Political Freedom, by Mireya Loza

Join us for an amazing conversation with Gil Rocha, curator of The Border is a Weapon and long-time friend and collaborator of the Other Border Wall Collective.  Here he speaks candidly with our wonderful season three host, Tereneh Idia. Gil Rocha is a south Texas artist, educator, and curator born in Laredo. He earned a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2006), a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Texas at San Antonio (1999), and is certified as an all-level Texas Educator from Texas A&M International University (2002). For the past 25 years, Rocha’s professional artistic career has led him to engage in a variety of programs taking on roles that span from facilitating workshops for community based projects, participating on panels, and working on public artworks and murals, in  collaboration with galleries and museums on the national and international level. His artwork expands across painting, collage, sculpture, installation, and writing. He focuses on issues about the U.S./Mexico border and takes on a survivalist approach known as “Rasquache.” Rocha’s role as an educator and avid advocate for the arts has positively impacted his students, peers and community. Rocha’s artwork was recently featured in two online magazines, PASSAGE Visions (Issue 6) and Maake Magazine (Issue 11), and in two collective exhibitions, “Son de Allá, Son de Acá” in Albuquerque, NM and “Desde La Frontera” in San Antonio, TX. He curated the traveling exhibition “The Border is a Weapon”, a project of the Other Border Wall Collective, currently on view at the Laredo Center for the Arts. In 2021, Rocha presented his work at the Sixth Biennial Inter-American Studies Conference “Walls, Bridges, Borders” and the International Sculpture Conference “Identity, Race & Culture: Misconceptions along La Frontera.” His artwork has also been exhibited at the Texas Biennial in Austin (2017) and the Trans-Border Biennial in El Paso Museum of Art and El Museo de Arte in Ciudad Juarez (2018). Rocha is currently preparing for an upcoming group exhibition in Austin, TX and was invited to curate the 2023 Contemporary Art Month Perennial in San Antonio, TX.

For Season Three, we are featuring the artists of THE BORDER IS A WEAPON exhibition curated by Gil Rocha and presented by Other Border Wall.  The exhibition features five artists from the US/MX border and was curated by Gil Rocha.  First opening in January 2022 at 937 Gallery in the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust  the show then traveled to the Laredo Center for the Arts in July 2022. Each interview is conducted by Tereneh Idia. Tereneh is the founder of Idia'Dega, an award-winning journalist, and the co-founder of Other Border Wall Project. Maritza Bautista is a Tex-Mex/pocha multi-disciplinary artist, educator, and cultural worker from Laredo, Texas. She received a Master of Arts in Art Education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2009) and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a minor in Studio Art from Texas A&M International University (2002). Maritza was awarded the SAIC Masters Fellowship in Art Education (2009), and her essay Unique Voices in Youth Media was published in the book Art and Social Justice Education: Culture as Commons (2012). Her work has been screened at various festivals including the iFFY: Independent Film Festival Ypsilanti (2022), MIRAAA Media Fest (2021), San Antonio Film Festival (2019), and Cine Las Americas International Film Festival (2015). She has also presented her work at the Creating Justice Symposium (2022), PASSAGE Visions (2022), the Sixth Biennial IAS Conference Walls, Bridges, Borders (2021), and most recently the collective exhibitions The Border is a Weapon (2022) and Across (2021). Maritza started teaching in 2003 and has sustained meaningful, collaborative art practices that explore and create a dialectic milieu inhabited by issues unique to marginalized communities. She is the Executive Director for Daphne Art Foundation.  Her artistic practice explores scavenging, movement and transportation of goods as they relate to wealth along and across the U.S./Mexico border, the economic disparities that are visible and at times ironic, and survival mechanisms of working class people. Links, topics mentioned Gil Rocha, https://www.maakemagazine.com/gil-rocha Latino Union of Chicago https://www.latinounion.org/ NAFTA https://www.thebalance.com/history-of-nafta-3306272 https://www.thebalance.com/disadvantages-of-nafta-3306273 https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/14/nafta-has-harmed-mexico-much-more-than-a-wall-will-ever-do/ Binational River Park https://cw39.com/news/nationworld/u-s-and-mexican-ambassadors-promote-binational-river-park-at-border-conference-in-d-c/ RISC Rio Grande International Study Center https://www.wavy.com/news/national/laredo-nonprofit-awarded-art-grant-for-anti-border-wall-initiatives/ No Border Wall https://noborderwallcoalition.com/ Tereneh Idia Design work: www.IdiaDega.com Writing: https://muckrack.com/tereneh-idia Twitter: @TerenehIdia