Featured artists Lía Garcia and Jesus I. Valles will present their works-in-progress around the theme of the Hemispheric Latinx Quinceañera performance traditions where racialized bodies are the primary tool of communication in the labor of transgender, jotx, Queer Latinx communty activism. 

About Lía Garcia

Lia García (La Novia Sirena), 1989, was born in Mexico City, where she currently lives. She studied Pedagogy and Visual Arts at the Unviversidad Nacional Autónoma de México. She is an activist and defender of the human rights of trans* people. Her artistic projects have focused on building affective bridges between the trans* experience and society through performance in public space. The work with the archetypes of femininity, ritual, feminist politics of affection and care, as well as radical pedagogy, is what nourishes Lia’s work and at the same time constitutes a new political commitment to achieve a collective transformation of gender far from a medium of prejudice and violence. Her work has been shown at national and international performance festivals such as Octubre Trans Barcelona, EXTRA!, Un ciclo-El palomar and Miradas Otras.

About Jesus I. Valles

Jesus I. Valles is an educator and writer-performer in Austin, Texas. He is the recipient of a fellowship from Undocupoets, a group that promotes the work of undocumented poets. On his previous work: "In his first full-length solo show, (Un)Documents, award-winning actor and poet Jesus I. Valles journeys across both sides of a river with two names, moving between languages to find his place as a son, a lover, a teacher, and a brother in a nation that demands sacrifice at the altar of citizenship. In doing so, he creates a new kind of documentation written with anger, fierce love, and the knowledge that what makes us human can never be captured on a government questionnaire."