Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Lecture: Thinking about Migration through Latinx Art

A lecture by Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Professor Charlene Villaseñor Black, Professor of Art History and Chicana/o Studies Studies at UCLA. Professor Charlene Villaseñor Black will offer a public lecture on the relationship between migration and art. In introducing the lecture, Charlene Villaseñor Black writes: Can art effect political change, and if so, how? Can it move us to action, empathy, andhope? I consider these questions as I investigate Chicanx (Mexican American) artists’ responses to global migration, in particular, Los Angeles artist Sandy Rodriguez (born1975). Her 2019 installation, You Will Not Be Forgotten, comprised of twenty works, was created with traditional Indigenous materials and techniques. Featuring an unusual series of portraits, it commemorates seven Central American child migrants who died in US Customs and Border Protection during 2018 and 2019. I consider the portraits in the context of practices of memorialization, both contemporary and historical, secular and sacred. Why talk about art in the face of such heart-wrenching injustice?