The Latinx Research Center will host an all-day symposium celebrating the historic retrospective Amalia Mesa-Bains: Archaeology of Memory at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (Feb. 4-July 23, 2023), co-curated by María Esther Fernández, inaugural Artistic Director of the Riverside Museum of Art’s Cheech Marin Center of Art and Culture, and Laura E. Pérez, Professor of the Department of Ethnic Studies, and Chair of the Latinx Research Center.
The public, all-day series of events will begin with an altar-building workshop, prioritizing students and local young artists, led by nationally recognized artist and UCB Instructor Jesus Barraza and Laila Espinosa, a US-MX performance artist and a Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies doctoral student at UC Berkeley. The afternoon symposium will feature presentations by exhibition catalog essayists, other invited Latinx Studies scholars, and curators: Ella Díaz, Anthony Graham, Ann Marie Leimer, Ronald Rael, Terezita Romo, Ani Rivera, Melissa San Miguel, Susanna Temkin, Mary Thomas, and Adriana Zavala. The symposium will conclude with a keynote by the artist, followed by a buffet dinner, and two short documentary films featuring the artist, Amalia Mesa Bains at de Saisset Museum by Elizabeth Sher and Amalia Mesa-Bains: In Her Own Words by Ray and Daniel Telles.
The symposium is made possible with the support of BAMPFA, the Center for Race and Gender, the Chicanx Studies Program, the Department of Ethnic Studies, and more.
This event is free, open to the public, and wheelchair accessible. For more information or accommodations, please email latinxresearch@berkeley.edu