Visual & Performance Art

Cultural Production in Chicana[x] Studies

The Visual and Performance Art focus in Cultural Production through Chicanx Studies at UCSB recognizes Art as Research. It is practice and theory at once.

Xicanx Indigenous Pedagogy is about relationship. It calls for an integral approach to Thought, Art and Social Practice, where we return to our bodies as the location of knowledge — knowledge that first resides within the context of our familias; and our familias within the context of community; and our communities within the context of history.

As artists and art educators, this is where art practice literally and metaphorically paints itself into the landscape of decolonization. Being together – teacher and students -- makes something happen distinct from our own singular musings or self preoccupations. This is the living classroom where learning occurs through doing.

Cultural Production is more than object-making, with the eye fixed only on an end result. It is process privileged over product. It is the reënactment and reëmbodiment of who we are on the road to reclamation. The road to getting there is what matters most.

Words & work by Celia Herrera Rodríguez 

Faculty