This episode of CAA Conversations, featuring Lilia Cabrera, Gina Gwen, and Christen S. García, considers borderlands-informed art pedagogies as acts of classroom, community, and artist practice, in both formal and informal spaces of art education. These guests make productive liminal spaces of art education by harnessing cultural, navigational, familial, creative, and linguistic capital.
Lilia Cabrera explores multiple environments with her art education students, offering experiences to work alongside hospital patients, asylum seekers in shelters, and resident doctors in Rio Grande Valley, Texas, hospitals. Her students work with communities with a range of age groups, motor skills, and cognitive abilities. She has taught art at various levels ranging from early childhood to university. She creates opportunities that align with the education of regional communities lacking in art experiences and has led art education students to create art workshops to delicate, low-economic, and multicultural youth in a border town. Cabrera is a lecturer for the art education program at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and an Associate Dean for Student Succes for the College of Fine Arts.
Gina Gwen Palacios creates work highlighting the underrepresented geographic and cultural narrative of the people and land of South Texas. Rooted in the theory of conocimiento, Palacios invites viewers to embrace a multiplicity of perspectives and honor the rich, marginalized knowledge and history embedded in the US/South Texas borderlands. She is an associate professor and the Director for the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley.
Christen S. García theorizes through lived experiences, sharing autohistoria-teorías as creative capital in nepantla espacios. García is co-founder of the Nationwide Museum Mascot Project and is an associate professor in the Department of Art Education at Florida State University. García is co-author of Art Borderlands in Theory, Practice, and Teaching, with Leslie C. Sotomayor II (Routledge, 2025) and is co-editor of the book BIPOC Alliances: Building Community and Curricula (Information Age Publishing, 2023).
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This episode of CAA Conversations, featuring Lilia Cabrera, Gina Gwen, and Christen S. García, considers borderlands-informed art pedagogies as acts of classroom, community, and artist practice, in both formal and informal spaces of art education. These guests make productive liminal spaces of art education by harnessing cultural, navigational, familial, creative, and linguistic capital.
Lilia Cabrera explores multiple environments with her art education students, offering experiences to work alongside hospital patients, asylum seekers in shelters, and resident doctors in Rio Grande Valley, Texas, hospitals. Her students work with communities with a range of age groups, motor skills, and cognitive abilities. She has taught art at various levels ranging from early childhood to university. She creates opportunities that align with the education of regional communities lacking in art experiences and has led art education students to create art workshops to delicate, low-economic, and multicultural youth in a border town. Cabrera is a lecturer for the art education program at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and an Associate Dean for Student Succes for the College of Fine Arts.
Gina Gwen Palacios creates work highlighting the underrepresented geographic and cultural narrative of the people and land of South Texas. Rooted in the theory of conocimiento, Palacios invites viewers to embrace a multiplicity of perspectives and honor the rich, marginalized knowledge and history embedded in the US/South Texas borderlands. She is an associate professor and the Director for the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley.
Christen S. García theorizes through lived experiences, sharing autohistoria-teorías as creative capital in nepantla espacios. García is co-founder of the Nationwide Museum Mascot Project and is an associate professor in the Department of Art Education at Florida State University. García is co-author of Art Borderlands in Theory, Practice, and Teaching, with Leslie C. Sotomayor II (Routledge, 2025) and is co-editor of the book BIPOC Alliances: Building Community and Curricula (Information Age Publishing, 2023).
What Makes Someone a Border Artist? // Sandoval // Pardo // Ceccopieri // Cortez // Davalos
CAA Conversations
57 minutes 25 seconds
3 months ago
What Makes Someone a Border Artist? // Sandoval // Pardo // Ceccopieri // Cortez // Davalos
In this episode of CAA Conversations, Kimberly Sandoval moderates a discussion on what it means to be a border artist and what separates Border Arte from other aspects of Chicana/o art, featuring Amanda Pardo and Samantha Ceccopieri, as well as Dr. Constance Cortez and Dr. Karen Mary Davalos, creators of Mexican American Art Since 1848.
Amanda Pardo was working toward a BA in history with a minor in art from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) at the time of recording. Her work and research focus on the history of women, gender, and sexuality. She has given a public talk about her work and research as part of a lecture series and participated in pop-up exhibitions dedicated to the discussion of modernity and the domestic space.
Samantha Ceccopieri has a BFA with a K–12 certification from UTRGV. Her work and research focus on the usage of art in mental wellness to reduce anxiety in scholars, both young and old, working with students and educators throughout the Rio Grande Valley. She has shared her research at TAEA and other art education conferences as part of UTRGV’s Engaged Scholar Program and School of Art and Design.
Constance Cortez is a professor at UTRGV for the School of Art and Design, currently teaching Chicano/a art history as well as special topics courses such as Women in Art History. Dr. Cortez is a prominent figure in Chicano/a scholarship, with works like The New Aztlan: Nepantla (and Other Sites of Transmogrification), published in 2001, and has an extensive background in early Mesoamerican art history.
Karen Mary Davalos is a professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, currently teaching topics in Chicano studies and art history as affiliated faculty. Dr. Davalos is also a prominent figure in Chicano/a scholarship with works like Exhibiting Mestizaje: Mexican (American) Museums in the Diaspora, also published in 2001, and recently presented a paper on Nepantla aesthetics at the CAA Annual Conference in 2024.
Kimberly Sandoval is an independent scholar, artist, and MFA alumna of UTRGV. Her work speaks to the life and experiences occurring around and within the Brownsville, South Texas, borderlands. She has exhibited her video artwork across the United States and Indonesia. She has also spoken about culturally affirming art pedagogies at art education conferences and chaired a panel discussion on Border Arte at the CAA Annual Conference in 2024 .
CAA Conversations
This episode of CAA Conversations, featuring Lilia Cabrera, Gina Gwen, and Christen S. García, considers borderlands-informed art pedagogies as acts of classroom, community, and artist practice, in both formal and informal spaces of art education. These guests make productive liminal spaces of art education by harnessing cultural, navigational, familial, creative, and linguistic capital.
Lilia Cabrera explores multiple environments with her art education students, offering experiences to work alongside hospital patients, asylum seekers in shelters, and resident doctors in Rio Grande Valley, Texas, hospitals. Her students work with communities with a range of age groups, motor skills, and cognitive abilities. She has taught art at various levels ranging from early childhood to university. She creates opportunities that align with the education of regional communities lacking in art experiences and has led art education students to create art workshops to delicate, low-economic, and multicultural youth in a border town. Cabrera is a lecturer for the art education program at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and an Associate Dean for Student Succes for the College of Fine Arts.
Gina Gwen Palacios creates work highlighting the underrepresented geographic and cultural narrative of the people and land of South Texas. Rooted in the theory of conocimiento, Palacios invites viewers to embrace a multiplicity of perspectives and honor the rich, marginalized knowledge and history embedded in the US/South Texas borderlands. She is an associate professor and the Director for the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley.
Christen S. García theorizes through lived experiences, sharing autohistoria-teorías as creative capital in nepantla espacios. García is co-founder of the Nationwide Museum Mascot Project and is an associate professor in the Department of Art Education at Florida State University. García is co-author of Art Borderlands in Theory, Practice, and Teaching, with Leslie C. Sotomayor II (Routledge, 2025) and is co-editor of the book BIPOC Alliances: Building Community and Curricula (Information Age Publishing, 2023).
