Bloodlines is an interdisciplinary group show by MFA 3rd years Karen Martinez, Jimmy Castillo, and Angel Castelán. There will be work ranging from photography, painting, and video from each artist as well as collaborative pieces.

Aware of Columbus Day, this show explores aspects of colonization and its relationship with our bodies and identities today. Our identities, as complex and raw as the first encounters between two unknown entities.

We take this opportunity to imagine other parts of colonization.

Is colonization finished or are we still going through it?

Does decolonization mean to take back what was colonized? By force? By subversion? Does it mean breaking free from the colonizer? Are we not deeply intertwined with the destiny of our colonizer? Should we be Imagining Re-colonization instead?

To answer this we assume the role of the colonized.  We make observations about what it’s like to live through active colonization in the form of gentrification. We acknowledge that in the Latinx familia we inherit our religious values directly through colonization’s forced indoctrination, which in turn causes the LGBTQ community to be shamed and accosted. This is the same religion that thinks of women as whores or saints, no in between.
Colonization has mestizised our bodies and savagely ripped our indigenous roots from us. Is our presence in the mythical land of Aztlan destiny or is it just poetic coincidence?

Bloodlines is the coming together of experiences and disciplines. It is an affirmation of Latinx unity and solidarity. It is working together to imagine healing and growth in our community.