202CotomJohanna Week7

Natalia Anciso is a fifth generation Tejana who grew up in El Rio Grande Valley, and is known for her visual arts and installation arts. As an artist and educator, her works revolves around family, community, and the border culture: where poverty, human trafficking, and the Mexican Drug war was very popular. She began gaining interest in vernacular arts, a genre of art made by untrained artists, or those who didn’t consider themselves an artist. In particular, she began researching pano arte, which are “drawings on handkerchiefs, believed to have emerged from Chicano prisoners in the 1940’s” (Website). She decides to merge pano arte with huipil, “embroidered Mayan textiles worn by indigenous women in Southern and Central America” (Website). Her mash of different genres of art, reconstructs to tell the contemporary stories of life along the Texas/Mexico border. After earning her Master of Fine Arts, California College of the Arts, and her M.A. in Education at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Education; her work shifted towards issues of Education, human rights, class and race, as she was an educator in San Francisco Oakland, and throughout the East Bay. Natalia Anciso’s art revolves around identity, struggles, and lived experiences, and as a tribute to her home from the South Texas borderlands to the Bay Area. The images I choose relate to different issues, but ultimately share the meaning of exposure and in hopes to create dialogue, and solutions. The first image is from the Don’t Shoot Series, which is a reflection of the school system and societal structures that have set urban youth of color, young black & Latino males to fail. This art was in response to the killings of unarmed black males. But it made me realize that this same issue affecting our school system are also what's happening along the border. The same issues stride across our homes. The second piece, is from The Families Belong Together Series, that reflects the rise in separation of families at the border. The last image I chose, was from the Maternidad Series, that relates to before and after childbirth. The piece “sobrevivir” represents parenthood. Particularly, how many women come to the U.S. in hopes for a better life for their family. Many end up working in the crop fields, for long hours under the sun. Their children are the motivation that make them surpass all struggles. They do what's necessary to make sure their children are well. Natalia Anciso hopes for people to inquire about these critical issues, but also to bring light (make changes) unto these horrid issues.