As a historically majority Mexican community with such proximity to our sister nation, there is a long fluid relationship with the regional geography beyond the imposed border. Creatives have captured this ethos and translated it into a rich visual language full of regional iconography, style and meaning. In a time where masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents terrorize the streets of United States’ cities, causing destruction, the resistance of immigrants and our communities are at the forefront of the nation’s psyche. Artists with a direct and personal experience with immigration are adding to the lexicon of visual resistance through their art and deserve to be supported now more than ever. In that spirit, the Delta Creative and Cultural Fellowship by Trucha supported 3 Rio Grande Valley artists to develop new artwork around their immigrant experience and history.
For the last six months, artists Damian Razo, Erika Lino and Michel Flores-Tavizón have been imbuing their artwork with their reflections on the immigrant experience and their place in it. From carving on wood panels to hand-building functional ceramic sculptures and sewing repurposed textiles, the fellows expanded their artwork. They honed in their creative conversations, laying out direct critiques of the current immigration system and focused their attention on the humanity and natural world that connects us all.
Brownsville artist Damian Razo works primarily in textile and soft sculptures made from scraps and found objects he gathers while thrifting. In addition to reducing and reusing landfill-destined materials, Razo connects to the history and meaning behind the cloth. His selection includes patterned bandanas, US Flags, and textured festive patterns that he then makes into larger-than-life sculptures or wearable pieces. The cloth adds dimension and interpretation to his work, for example in his work “Weightless,” Razo disassembled a large US Flag that he salvaged and reimagined it as a large punching bag. The stars and striped patterns and the colors are an obvious connection to the nation upon initial view, but the work makes viewers question if they should punch it as they would a normal punching bag. Hanging near the piece are large stuffed boxing gloves in red, green and white sequences with laced fabric.
Photograph by Andrew Perez.
Similarly, Michel Flores-Tavizón is straightforward regarding her political observations of the border. She also utilizes found and repurposed cloth found in the Downtown Brownsville shops in her artmaking. Flores-Tavizón prints meticulous wood-carved panels of typical shotgun-style homes or “casitas” that are common on both sides of the border. In two different pieces, rows of homes mirror each other with a river and border wall, or floating buoys positioned between them, separating the neighbors. Each section of the image is printed on a different fabric and incorporated into the larger piece, which is then embellished through hand-sewn additions that give individual personalities to the homes and families who reside inside. The artwork reflects on similarities in a sense of security and lives on both sides of the imposed barriers despite the violent separation.
In addition to showcasing a sad reality that is, in a way, definitive of our time, the artists move beyond those observations and connect to ideas and beings that ignore man-made borders. Erika Lino, for example, reconnects with the land and beyond, figuratively and creatively, through her ceramic work. Some of Lino’s sculptural pieces are what she calls “Chimostrufios,” a childhood nickname her mother would use to describe her and her siblings’ wild antics. They are high-fire miniature stoneware figures of whiskered cat-like creatures in playful poses. Other pieces reflect on her childhood through more narrative sculptures that feature cartoon-like characters of children, parents and nature. Her functional ware is defined by a balance of bruteness and a high level of detail, repetition and texture. It focuses on the imagery of plants that, for her, carry deep meaning regarding/in regards to her migration journey, specifically the Corona de Cristo. Her vases carry a striking form and silhouette dripped with self-mixed glazes that run through in light pinks and teals. Lino challenged herself to make large ceramic pedestals to feature her work.
For artists with a deep connection to this place beyond its borders, their visual language is seen through depictions of cultural expression, fauna and flora that could be experienced regionally on whichever side of the wall. A similarity in iconography between Lino and Flores-Tavizón is their use of the cactus or nopal to signify the landscape as well as resistance. Lino depicts the nopal through sculptural pieces of cacti that showcase the rough patterns of her thumbprints, which add deep grooves and crevices to the succulent.
Flores-Tavizón uses the symbolism of the nopal to mark the interaction of humans and nature. In a series of workshops throughout the RGV, Flores-Tavizon invited the public to create a collaborative cloth collage by adding their individual block-printed nopal penca (cactus pad) to a larger piece. In the workshops, the artist facilitated conversations about immigration and the participants’ different perspectives on what they loved about it. She offered a linoleum block and the carving tools for them to represent it visually. The result is a compilation of stories, of many experiences displaying the resistance of community and nature.
Photograph by Andrew Perez
Another unifying aspect of the fellowship was the focus on the collective, as seen in Flores-Tavizón’s collaborative artwork. The fellows bounced ideas off one another and worked alongside in the Flowershop Gallery in Brownsville, Texas who graciously opened their doors so the fellows could have a space in the Lower Valley to create.
Razo expanded this idea of connection to one another and reframed the conversation about immigration, borders and state violence to a larger global scale. Through mannequin-like soft sculptures made of brown fabric, Razo depicted the stories of several children, victims of geopolitical violence in different regions facing nation-backed destruction. Youth like Jocelyn Rojo Carranza, an 11-year-old Gainesville, Texas student who unalived themselves after classmates bullied her about her family being in the country undocumented. Mohammad Bhar, a person with Down syndrome who was murdered by the Israeli Defense Forces during a raid in Gaza in July 2024. These and other references, including Mikaeil Mirdoraghi, Mariee Juarez, Felipe Gomez Alonzo, Gabriela Aparicio Ortega, are all seen jumping joyfully together in the wallwork made of felt. These artworks are deeply impactful in connecting the human experience of the most vulnerable, victimized by the geopolitical forces that weaponize immigration and borders.
The artwork created by the featured artist in the Delta Creative and Cultural Fellowship is a testament to the importance of voices on the ground. Supporting creatives who are, by their citizenship status and history, predisposed to politically motivated attacks and xenophobic hate is a crucial task. Providing a space to confront these conversations and emerging past them is important and a small gesture in comparison to what immigrant creatives offer the community of the 956 and beyond.
Join us in celebrating the exhibition “De la Delta,” on display at Ponte Creative Studio and Gallery. The opening reception is November 13 from 6 to 9 p.m.
