{"id":51495,"date":"2018-04-02T14:07:43","date_gmt":"2018-04-02T18:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=51495"},"modified":"2022-09-28T13:27:41","modified_gmt":"2022-09-28T17:27:41","slug":"border-expressions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2018\/04\/02\/border-expressions\/","title":{"rendered":"Border expressions"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Wright State graduate\u00a0English students created interactive art exhibits inspired by feminist writer Gloria Anzald\u00faa and featured at downtown Dayton’s First Friday event on April 6.<\/p><\/div>\n

Interactive art exhibits inspired by feminist writer Gloria Anzald\u00faa and created by Wright State University English department graduate students will be unveiled in a community setting to heighten awareness about borders and gentrification.<\/p>\n

The community art show on April 6 is part of First Friday, which features art and entertainment in downtown Dayton. The show, which runs from 5 to 9 p.m., is hosted by the El Rinc\u00f3n Art Studio in the Front Street Building, 1001 E. 2nd St. It is free and open to the public.<\/p>\n

The show will feature an Anzald\u00faa-inspired painting, a sculpture, a map of the economic and social \u201cborder\u201d between East Dayton and Oakwood, readings, and a vibrant, interactive exhibit of photos and transparent masks that can be moved around by members of the community to express their ideas.<\/p>\n

The show is part of a project in a class on Anzald\u00faa taught by Kelli Zaytoun, professor of English language and literatures<\/a> and an Anzald\u00faa scholar.<\/p>\n

Anzald\u00faa, who died in 2004, was an acclaimed fiction writer, poet, activist and cultural theorist. She is considered a founder of the Chicana feminist movement and is perhaps best known for her book “Borderlands\/La Frontera,” a semi-autobiographical work that includes prose and poems that interrogate the borders between ethnic groups, languages, world views, genders and sexualities.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is known for her work in border theory, looking at the relationship between physical borders and identity,\u201d said Zaytoun. \u201cShe wasn\u2019t just interested in physical location, but psychological borders, sexual borders, spiritual borders.\u201d<\/p>\n

The art exhibit is titled \u201cCoyolxauhqui,\u201d a name used by Anzald\u00faa in reference to a leader of the southern star gods in Aztec mythology who was dismembered during an attack. The title is meant to present the idea of creation by reassembly through the strength of people\u2019s individual identities.<\/p>\n

The art show is being spearheaded by Dylan Colvin, a master’s student in humanities and English rhetoric from Dayton, and artist Andy A. Espino, owner of the El Rinc\u00f3n Art Studio.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe likes art, and I like activism,\u201d said Colvin. \u201cWe\u2019re using the Coyolxauhqui concept to have people create this idea of what community looks like to each of us. We need to let voices from all over Dayton blossom.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Christina Puntasecca Luiggi, a master’s student in English literature from Las Cruces, New Mexico, is adding to the artwork photos she took during a visit to Pilsen, a historically Mexican-American neighborhood on the west side of Chicago that is struggling with gentrification. Mostly white homeowners and white-owned businesses have been displacing Mexicans and Mexican-owned businesses there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw these murals that spoke to immigration policy and resistance in these really powerful ways that you just couldn\u2019t deny,\u201d said Luiggi. \u201cThere were activist posters posted to every surface that said things like, \u2018Who Did You Displace Today?\u2019 and describing what your business transactions in the neighborhood are actually doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The artwork will include an array of transparent masks from Luiggi that will overlap and be designed to express the complexities of gentrification.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to think Anzald\u00faa would like the idea of this project in the community,\u201d Luiggi said. \u201cAnd especially right now when we\u2019re having a lot of conversations about borders and immigration and Dayton being a sanctuary city. It\u2019s really important to put a human face to the issue through artistic mediums.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luiggi said Zaytoun\u2019s class has enabled her to connect ideas that don\u2019t necessarily fit into conventional frameworks.<\/p>\n

\u201cGloria Anzald\u00faa\u2019s writing is personal to me so there has been a lot of opportunity for personal growth,\u201d Luiggi said. \u201cBut it has also enabled me to have difficult conversations with people who come from really different spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colvin said the class has helped her better understand other people\u2019s points of view by understanding that each person can be \u201cmany things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t have to pick an identity with which to live your life by,\u201d Colvin said. \u201cWe have a fluidity with which to understand experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zaytoun said Anzald\u00faa\u2019s work has a special resonance in today\u2019s environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnzald\u00faa is important right now because I think we\u2019re having a problem as a country with trying to understand what it means to be an American, what it means to be America,\u201d said Zaytoun. \u201cWhen do you put up a border and when do you tear it down and how do you do something in between?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The community art show on April 6 is part of downtown’s First Friday from 5 to 9 p.m. at the El Rinc\u00f3n Art Studio. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":51501,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,2037,2060,725,4863,747,715],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-arts-scene","category-graduate","category-home-news-sidebar","category-humanities-and-cultural-studies","category-liberal-arts","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51495"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51504,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51495\/revisions\/51504"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}