Week 5 Carmen Lomas Garza

Cortez writes that Garza’s work offers “contemporary dialogue with the past as well as a reaffirmation of cultural continuity” (58). One of the many strong currents of this work is to reconcile and affirm Chicano identity in conversation with pre-Columbian culture. Garza draws from a Native imagination in her work Homenaje a Tenochtitlán: An Installation for the Day of the Dead (Homage to Ancient Mexico City and Doña Marina, “La Malinche”) (1992). She creates a blueprint of the imagination with a seven-foot multitiered red pyramid at the end of a black causeway. To walk down the path is to walk through history. Along the causeway are small red altars and marigolds with black paper cutouts on the walls of the flora y fauna native to Mexico. The countless details and thought put into this work make the space sacred as the work conjures entire narratives of conquest, domination, death, reverence, and understanding. Her reference in her altar to Malinche draws on a controversial historical figure in her community to center the Mesoamerican figure in her narrative during the world’s Quincentenary. During this time, Garza focuses her message to champion and connect Indigenous practices with her Chicana community.

Garza celebrates friends and artistic collaborations. There is a strong sense of collectivity in her work; and her career, described by Cortez, illustrates the people in her life who have offered much guidance and support in her artistic mission. Like a cultural mediator with her work, Garza’s art pieces offer a space for dialogue and affirmation of her community’s identity. By featuring the strong collective imagination, she visualizes the hope and perseverance of her identity to undermine social and political prejudice.