The 956 Radical Library was founded in 2021 by Nansi Guevara and Xandra Treviño in response to the growing threat of book bans across the US. Building on an initial donation from the Texas Book Festival, our collection has grown thanks to support from the Mellon Foundation.
Reflection and Renewal: Chican(x)Futurism in Texas
Nansi Guevara x
Statement: Through art I focus on clearing the distorted mirror of our militarized South Texas border region by exposing the history, racial scripts, and false narratives that have warped our perspective of self and place. My work, Nuestra Delta Magica (Our Magic Delta), deconstructs the collectively false narrative we have heard since our adolescence of the South Texas border, that “there is nothing here.” This installation unpacks this harmful narrative as a way to justify environmental destruction and U.S imperial expansion with the establishments of SpaceX’s rocket testing sites and settlements of a natural gas refinery and pipeline (LNG), all within six miles from each other on the Mexico-U.S border.
Review: “Nuestra Delta Mágica” in Brownsville and Humberto Jimenez in Matamoros
Nuestra Delta Mágica: Settler Imaginaries & Community Resistance at 924 E. Levee St, Brownsville, Texas, April 1 – June 1, 2023
Inside a temporarily repurposed commercial space in downtown Brownsville, a series of wall texts and photographs explore a history of racism, colonization, and exploitative labor practices in South Texas. They are presented alongside protest signs painted by the local Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe, one of which reads “STOP DESTROYING OUR SACRED LAND.” In another corner of the room, a compact library of activist and revolutionary literature, including titles like They Called Them Greasers: Anglo Attitudes toward Mexicans in Texas, 1821–1900 and Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands, is displayed next to a small television screening the 2003 film Valley of Tears, which documents three decades of farm worker struggles on the Texas border.
Santa Fe Art Institute Residency/ Fellowship :2022 Revolution
‘Radical Library’: Popup bookcase offers diverse authors
Visitors to the Brownsville Farmers’ Market on Saturday, might have walked past a bookcase with a painted sign stating ‘956 Radical Library’ surrounded by a few benches and mats under a nearby tent. The free mobile library is the brainchild of friends and collaborators, Nansi Guevara and Xandra Treviño.
Reclaiming the Border Narrative: Digital Archive: The Magic Yali
The Magic Yali
The Magic Yali is an animated short based on a young girl who is both shy and adventurous. Her home is the Rio Grande Delta in South, Texas, an interdependent ecosystem. On one of her adventures she witnesses history repeat itself, threatening her home. She channels a part of herself to protect the place she loves.
Alternative Futures: Las Imaginistas | A Blade of Grass Films
Las Imaginistas work with the community in Brownsville, Tex. to explore the impact of colonial history on the city's architecture and infrastructure. Their project Hacemos La Ciudad (We Make the City) — through workshops, performances, and visioning sessions — provides an opportunity for Brownsville residents to imagine and enact a decolonized future along the southern border. A Blade of Grass Films explore artists working for social change. From Black Self-determination and Jordan Weber’s Malcolm X greenhouse in a North Omaha food desert, to imagining Alternative Futures through Chinatown Art Brigade’s fight against displacement, artists around the country are taking action on challenging issues to model a more just and equitable future. Produced with RAVA Films and featuring A Blade of Grass Fellows for Socially Engaged Art.
Chelsea Collaborative Celebrates Unveiling of Workers Rights Mural b
On May 31st, members of the Chelsea Collaborative, Chelsea city councilors, workers rights activists and Chelsea Community members gathered for the unveiling of the Chelsea Collaborative’s new workers rights mural. The mural creator, artist Nancy Guevara met with members of the Chelsea Latino Immigrant Committee an Environmental Chelsea Organizers a several times over the past few months to create the design for the mural.
The mural is part of a statewide education campaign to bring more awareness to the worker’s rights violations that immigrant workers face throughout Massachusetts. Organizations like the Collaborative, have long been fighting issues of wage theft, especially in industries with a high level of subcontracting, where cleaning, construction and
