Escenas [Exhibition]
Sep
5
to Dec 4

Escenas [Exhibition]

The Latinx Project at New York University announces Escenas featuring the work of seven emerging lens-based artists. Activating the third floor gallery space of 20 Cooper Square, the exhibition debuts with a public opening celebration on September 5, 2025 and closes on December 04, 2025

Escenas features the work of seven contemporary photographers—Andina Marie Osorio, Arlene Mejorado, Ashley Peña, Damon Casarez, Diana Guerra, José Ibarra Rizo, and Steven Molina Contreras—based across New York, Georgia, California, and the Dominican Republic. Utilizing performative self-portraiture, anthotype, feminist archival practices, and other strategies, the lens-based artists explore the embodied and relational texture of documenting life as they maneuver racialization, migration, and diaspora. By repurposing material, space, and time, Escenas invites us to contemplate how we hold and are held by the past through practices that allow us to sense, activate, and revere connections with moments that have presumably expired. Escenas presents scenes of life unfolding—a room where personal and collective histories touch and move across times and geographies. ” 

- Orlando Ochoa, Jr.

Escenas spotlights the vibrant work of Andina Marie Osorio, Arlene Mejorado, Ashley Peña, Damon Casarez, Diana Guerra, José Ibarra Rizo, and Steven Molina Contreras.

Click here to Schedule a visit
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Pitching 101: Arts and Culture Writing [Virtual]
Nov
5

Pitching 101: Arts and Culture Writing [Virtual]

Join Alex Santana and Yara Simón, editors at Intervenxions and freelance writers, for this guide on how to pitch publications. This virtual discussion will cover how to write an effective pitch, find your niche, and target publications. We will present sample pitches, break down what Intervenxions is looking for, and offer tips and tricks to help you stand out to any publication.

Please RSVP via Eventbrite

Alex Santana is a writer, editor, and curator with an interest in conceptual art, political intervention, and public participation. Currently based in New York but originally from Newark, NJ, she has held positions at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Joan Mitchell Center, Mana Contemporary, and Alexander Gray Associates. Her interviews and essays have been published by Hyperallergic, CUE Art Foundation, Terremoto Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, Precog Magazine, NXTHVN, and Artsy. She is currently Associate Editor for Intervenxions, a publication of The Latinx Project at NYU.

Yara Simón is a Nicaraguan-Cuban-American editor, journalist, and author who has worked in Latinx media for more than a decade. Currently the deputy editor at Intervenxions, she is particularly passionate about covering topics that explore the Central American diaspora. She resides in Los Angeles with her daughter and husband.

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Deadline: Nominate 2026 Honoree
Nov
7

Deadline: Nominate 2026 Honoree

Nomination for The Latinx Project Honoree (Spring 2026)

We would love to hear from you as we identify honorees to be recognized at our next Spring Party in April 2026. Please use this form to nominate one individual across regions, generations, or fields who excel in areas of arts, scholarship, criticism, or activism. Please feel free to self-nominate. Each person can only submit one nomination.

Deadline: Please submit nominations by November 7, 2025.

Submit: https://airtable.com/appmZ49Q1tPoKVUxE/shrg6fLAYTzrfy6G7

Past Honorees

2025: Edra Soto, C. Ondine Chavoya

2024: Juana Valdés, Tomás Ybarra Frausto

2023: Black Latinas Know Collective, Lorgia Garcia Peña, Amalia Mesa Bains, E. Carmen Ramos, Shellyne Rodriguez

Questions? latinxproject@nyu.edu

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Lunch Research Series: Melissa Aslo de la Torre
Nov
12

Lunch Research Series: Melissa Aslo de la Torre

The Latinx Project is excited to host a brown-bag luncheon series to continue building the Latinx Studies community here at NYU. Join us November 12 at noon at 20 Cooper Square Room 101 for “Entre Nosotras Mismas: Interventions in Archival Practice from Archivo de la Memoria Trans” by Melissa Aslo de la Torre (Librarian for Latin American, Caribbean, Spanish, and Portuguese Studies at Bobst Library).

This event is open only to NYU faculty, students, and staff. Please use your NYU ID to enter the building.

Please RSVP here.

About

Melissa Aslo de la Torre is the Librarian for Latin American, Caribbean, and Spanish & Portuguese studies at New York University. She is a queer Midwestern Mexican memory worker and scholar whose research focuses on archival praxis among queer, lesbian, and trans communities in Latin America and in diaspora, exploring intersections of collective memory, visual culture, performance, and the digital. Melissa is a member of Malflora Collective, a community project dedicated to preserving the lives and legacies of Latina/e lesbians. 

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TLP at American Studies Association
Nov
19
to Nov 22

TLP at American Studies Association

The Latinx Project will participate in the Exhibit Hall at the 2025 Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The theme of this year’s conference program is Late-Stage American Empire?

The Latinx Project will exhibit the Intervenxions print volumes as well as other publications. The ASA Exhibition Hall will be open the following days and times:

Thursday, November 20

9:30am - 5:45pm

Friday, November 21

9:30am - 5:45pm

Saturday, November 22

8:30am-11:00am

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GSWG Symposium: Open Call
Dec
1

GSWG Symposium: Open Call

The Latinx Project’s Graduate Student Working Group Symposium: Open Call

Please apply here


The Latinx Project Graduate Student Working Group (GSWG) invites applications from graduate students (MA/MFA/PhD) for our second annual symposium at New York University. Inspired by a set of topics salient to the inquiries of Latinx performance studies, Black studies, and queer of color critique. The Latinx Project GSWG Symposium seeks contributions that speak to the world-making activity that happens in and with the dark. More than a term that has historically been used to index racialized and abject categories, we approach the dark as an aesthetic mode, a tool for the creation of alternative geographies, a time for intimacy and resistance to be performed from deviant and presumably disempowered positions and spaces. What can practitioners of the dark teach us? How do we turn to the dark as a source of power and information? Where can the dark lead us?  

Participants may choose to address the following topics, but are welcome to explore others

    Geographic matters, practices, and struggles
    Visuality and the politics of color
     Nightlife aesthetics, textures, and architectures
    Alternative spiritualities and otherwise worlds  
    Dark acoustics and subcultures
    Negative affective worlds and atmospheres
    Sensuality and viscerality
    Science, technology, and media

Our symposium will take place in-person on February 20, 2026. More details to come.

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Writing Fashion
Dec
9

Writing Fashion

Image Credit: Lujo Depot, styled by Keyla Marquez

Writing Fashion explores the dynamic field of Latinx fashion through the lenses of cultural studies and visual culture. Bringing together scholars and writers, it examines how fashion has been approached as a site of identity formation, resistance, and cultural expression. Panelists will discuss key trends, influential texts, and emerging theoretical frameworks—ranging from decolonial critique and embodiment to gender, race, and class analysis—that shape the study of Latinx fashion today. By foregrounding fashion as a powerful mode of visual storytelling, this conversation highlights its role in both challenging and reimagining dominant narratives within and beyond the fashion industry.

RSVP via Eventbrite


Participants

Isael Andrade is a cultural researcher, writer, and community maker whose work bridges fashion, identity, and equity. Isael’s research explores the preservation and reading of cultural dress practices within Chicano communities. Highlighting the continuity of cultural values through dress and as a tool that communities use to respond to their social conditions. Isael currently works with the Virgil Abloh “Post-Modern” Scholarship Fund to support emerging Black talent in the fashion industry while expanding the Fashion Scholarship Fund's equity initiatives. 

Aída Hurtado is Distinguished Professor and Luis Leal Endowed Chair in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. As a social psychologist, she applies intersectional feminisms to the areas of Chicana fashion and dance performance. She combines the writings of Black feminist scholars, Chicana feminisms, social identity theory, and Anzaldúa’s Borderland Theory to expand understandings of ethnic, racial, and gender formations. Her books include Intersectional Chicana Feminisms: Sitios y Lenguas (2020), and meXicana Fashions: Politics, Self-Adornment, and Identity Construction (2020, co-edited with Cantú). Professor Hurtado spoke at the 2017 and 2018 Women’s March.

Kayla Marquez is the fashion director at large for Image. Since working with the magazine, she has styled and fashion-directed some of Image’s most inventive, high-impact shoots, including a feature that recreated the “Homies” figurines in real life and a collaboration with Sister Kokoro that dressed the L.A. Dance Project troupe in L.A. designers. Marquez’s work has appeared in editorials, commercials, music videos and campaigns. In October 2022, Marquez launched Lujo Depot, which she describes as “the first independent online showroom that specializes in renting sustainable and contemporary wear by new and established designers.” The shop launched with an epic zoot suit campaign, for which she gave nine L.A. designers full creative freedom to reimagine the suit. A native of Los Angeles, Marquez is also a costume designer and creative consultant. She seeks to center historically marginalized voices in contemporary fashion and approaches styling as a form of storytelling.

Michelle McVicker is Associate Collections Specialist at the Antonio Ratti Textile Study and Storage Center at The Met. She previously worked at El Museo del Barrio, The Museum at FIT, The Smithsonian National Museum of American History, and The Costume Institute. As a collections care professional, her research interests include how material culture, specifically clothing, embodies Latinx representation within the United States. She has published academically on fashion history, intangible heritage, and how to proactively intervene gaps within museum costume collections.

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Photographers in Conversation: Vernacular Images [Virtual]
Oct
22

Photographers in Conversation: Vernacular Images [Virtual]

Event Recap


Please join us on Wednesday, October 22, 2025 at 6:30pm for "Photographers in Conversation: Vernacular Images." This panel discussion features the artists of Escenas--Andina Marie Osorio, Ashley Peña, Damon Casarez, Diana Guerra, José Ibarra Rizo, and Steven Molina Contreras--and will be moderated by the co-curators Orlando Ochoa, Jr. and Xavier Robles Armas.

"Photographers in Conversation" will take place online via Zoom and will explore the making of vernacular contemporary photography.

Escenas is made possible with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Ford Foundation, and the New York University Office of the Provost.

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Lunch Research Series: Dr. Cloe Gentile Reyes
Oct
15

Lunch Research Series: Dr. Cloe Gentile Reyes

The Latinx Project is excited to launch a brown-bag luncheon series to continue building the Latinx Studies community here at NYU. Join us October 15 at noon at 20 Cooper Square Room 101 for the first presentation: "Taíno Timbres: Dreaming Afrofutures, Sounding Indigenous Presence in La Sista's 'Anacaona'" by Dr. Cloe Gentile Reyes (Faculty Fellow, CAS Music).

This event is open only to NYU faculty, students, and staff. Please use your NYU ID to enter the building.

Please RSVP via Google Form

Abstract

La Sista's music video for her song "Anacaona" acts as an entry point to recall the often-forgotten history of Boricuas in U.S. Indian Boarding Schools, as well as the implementation of these genocidal assimilationist educational models on the island through U.S. colonial rule. My paper ruminates on how this living history impacts Indigenous modes of sounding, as well as how, in La Sista's case, rap and drums act as modes of language and music revitalization that open portals to the Dreamspace and in effect queer time. Through a decolonial and ancestral listening praxis, I hear La Sista's voice undoing what Maria Lugones calls "the coloniality of gender," ultimately enabling the reggaetónera to engage in resuscitative labor that conjures the Taíno Kasika, Anacaona, in the present moment. 


About

Dr. Cloe Gentile Reyes is a Boricua writer, educator, and songkeeper. She is currently a Faculty Fellow in the CAS Department of Music at NYU. Her writing and teaching center Indigenous epistemologies of sound and embodiment at the intersections of race, gender, and disability. Her first book project, Sounding Sucia: Disabling Coloniality through Rap & Reggaetón, navigates how queer Indigenous peoples are disabled by coloniality but engage with rap and reggaetón as forms of ancestral memory to disarm coloniality in return. 

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Detention and Deportation
Oct
15

Detention and Deportation

Join the NYU Migration Network for a full-day conference exploring detention and deportation from multiple angles—past, present, and future. Through four panels with scholars, journalists, policy experts, and activists, we’ll examine how these practices shape US politics and immigration policy, from the historical roots of detention to the latest technologies of enforcement, and the on-the-ground organizing happening in New York City today. This event is co-sponsored in part by The Latinx Project and other centers and institutes.

NYU campus access guidelines: This is an in-person event, open to the public. Registration is required.

Accessibility note: If you have any access needs, please email migration-network@nyu.edu.

 

Panel 1: The politics and policy of detention and deportation under Trump 2
10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m. EDT

This panel sets the stage for a discussion of detention and deportation in the context of today’s politics and policies. Together, the panelists will help us make sense of the impact of this administration’s policies on the lives of immigrants and the way that a politics of detention and deportation is reshaping the United States of America.

Featured Panelists:
Adam Cox (New York University)
Muzaffar Chishti (Migration Policy Institute)
Tanya Greene (Human Rights Watch)
Miriam Jordan (New York Times)
Moderated by Natasha Iskander

Panel 2: History of detention and deportation
12:15 p.m.-1:15 p.m.

This keynote discussion will situate this unprecedented moment in the context of the contemporary history and geography of detention and deportation in immigration enforcement.

Featured Keynote Speaker:
Alison Mountz (University of Toronto)
Moderated by Radha S. Hegde

Panel 3: Technologies of detention and deportation
1:30pm-3:00pm

This panel focuses on the technologies and infrastructure of detention and deportation, from digital surveillance to the bureaucratic structure of ICE, to the financial institutions embedded in the business of detention.

Featured Panelists:
Kimberly Morgan (George Washington University)
Matthew Guariglia (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
Nancy Hiemstra (Stony Brook University)
William Turton (Propublica)
Moderated by Aisha Khan

Panel 4: Activists in NYC
3:15pm-4:00pm

This panel brings together activist organizations and student groups to discuss the work that they are doing on the ground to support New Yorkers who are vulnerable to detention and deportation. The discussion will include a know-your-rights training.

Photograph source: Library of Congress, photograph by Dorothea Lange

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Conference: Aesthetics of Joy and Refuge in Contemporary Culture
Oct
10

Conference: Aesthetics of Joy and Refuge in Contemporary Culture

On Friday, October 10, The Latinx Project hosted a full-day interdisciplinary conference titled Aesthetics of Joy and Refuge in Contemporary Culture. The gathering featured presentations by a range of scholars and cultural producers, each transforming contemporary visual culture, creative industries, and scholarship. 

This event was made possible with support from the Mellon Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Tisch Illumination Fund.

Event Recap



9:00am Breakfast & Registration

9:50am Welcome

10:00am-11:40am Panel: Media and New Technologies

  • Arcelia Gutiérrez (University of California, Irvine): The Case for Media Reparations

  • Harold J. Leonard Navarro (Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras): Beyond Recognition: Black Bodies, AI, and the Aesthetics of Recognition

  • Michael Anthony Turcios (Northwestern University): Experiments with Burning ICE: Rage as Joy and Refuge

  • Nathan Rossi (Northwestern University): Digital Mestizaje, the Datafication of Latinx Identity, and the Political Economy of Brownness on TikTok

  • Ramón Resendiz (University of Oregon): Visualizing Archival Resistance: Producing Refuge & Justice through Documentary Media across the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

  • Moderator: Sharon De La Cruz (New York University)

11:50am-1:30pm Panel: Perspectives on Visual Art

  • Armando Perla (University of Montreal): Diasporic Aesthetics of Resistance: Indigenous Mesoamerican Museologies and the Visual Politics of Memory

  • Deanna Ledezma (University of Illinois Chicago): Lineages of Labor: Contemporary Latinx Artists at Work

  • Debbie M Duarte (Pitzer College): Alien Toy Takes a Joyride: Sensing Borderless Futurities

  • Joanne Gil Rivera (La Calle Loíza, Inc.): Somos Cangrejos: Mapa, Arte, Foro

  • Raul Moarquech Ferrera-Balanquet (Howard University Gallery of Art): Africana Kairibe Malungaje: Futurist Reversed Memories

  • Moderator: Robert Hernandez (Fordham University)

2:30pm-4:10pm Panel: Joy and Embodiment

  • Andy Rafael Aguilera (Western Washington University): “It Means Good”: Resistance and Refuge in Latinx Streetwear Brands in the Age of Trump

  • Gabrielle Vazquez (Curator): Diasporican Queens

  • Jose Ferrufino (Industrial designer): Al mal tiempo, buena cara: The Making of Beauty

  • Odalis Garcia Gorra (University of Texas at Austin): Dancing at the Threshold: Joy, Resistance, and the Counter-Archives of Diasporican

  • Orquidea Morales (University of Arizona): Excess and Monstrosity: The Freedom and Pain of La Gordita

  • Moderator: Gabriel Magraner (The Latinx Project)

4:20pm-6:00pm Panel: Migration and Border Culture

  • Daniel J. Vázquez Sanabria (University of Texas at Austin): Return is/as Refuge: Crip Narratives of Migration in Contemporary Puerto Rican Cultural Productions

  • Jose Alaniz (University of Washington, Seattle): Out of the Chispaverse: Chispa Comics as ‘Militarized Border Visuality’

  • Kiri Avelar (University of Utah): Transnational Family Dance Lineages of the U.S./Mexico Bracero Program

  • Mikayla Hernandez Guevara (School of the Art Institute of Chicago): What a Border to Cross: Domesticana, Material, and Aesthetics of Migration in Shaping a Transcendent Chicana Identity

  • Taylor Seaver De La Fuente (University of Michigan): Lo Que Le Pasó al Valle

  • Moderator: Cristina Beltrán (New York University)

6:00pm-7:00pm Community Reception

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Intervenxions: Vol. 4 Launch
Sep
27

Intervenxions: Vol. 4 Launch

Join us at La Feria: Print Media Fair for the launch of Intervenxions Vol. 4. The issue will be available for purchase along with dozens of publications and art from independent creators. From 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., we’ll be serving special treats to celebrate the publication. Meet editors Yara Simón and Alex Santana as well as contributors to the publication. We hope to see you there!


Intervenxions is The Latinx Project’s digital publication. Since 2022, Intervenxions has published a printed volume to document the work of our collaborators. This year’s issue features 14 articles on materiality, palimpsests, and regeneration.


Intervenxions Vol. 4. is made possible with support from the Henry Luce Foundation, Ford Foundation, Critical Minded, and the Mellon Foundation.

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La Feria: Print Media Fair
Sep
27

La Feria: Print Media Fair

Join us at La Feria: Print Media Fair on Saturday, September 27 at New York University featuring 45 exhibitors showcasing prints, posters, zines, art books and more. Free and open to the public!

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Wikipedia NYC 400 Edit-A-Thon: Nueva Yol
Sep
19

Wikipedia NYC 400 Edit-A-Thon: Nueva Yol

Wikimedia NYC and The Latinx Project are hosting the Wikipedia NYC 400 Edit-A-Thon: Nueva Yol on Friday, September 19, 2025 from 5pm to 8pm at 20 Cooper Square, New York. 

The program, coinciding with the Wikimedia NYC 400 campaign and Latinx Heritage Month, aims to create a space to uplift Latinx New Yorkers, histories, communities, and themes which should be on Wikipedia or might need a little update. No prior experience with Wikipedia is required to participate! 

Bring a laptop or the editing device of your choice.

For inspiration, you can consult our growing Latinx Studies library which will be on display. Additionally, visit the photography exhibition Escenas. Snacks and refreshments will be served. The event is free and open to the public. 

Wikipedia edit-a-thons have emerged as a powerful tool for communities that are underserved by the lack of diversity among Wikipedia content editors.

All attendees are subject to Wikimedia NYC’s Code of Conduct.

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Escenas Tours at 20 Cooper Live [Open House]
Sep
10

Escenas Tours at 20 Cooper Live [Open House]

20 Cooper Live!
Centers & Institutes’ Open House

NYU students, faculty and staff are invited to join The Latinx Project and our colleagues for a dynamic open house! Meet the curators of Escenas and tour the exhibition, Escenas, on September 10 from 3-6pm.

Did you know that 20 Cooper Square is home to over a dozen Provostial Centers and Institutes at NYU? We invite all NYU students, staff, and faculty to visit our current exhibitions, and learn more about the Centers and Institutes' and groundbreaking research and programming. There will be snacks and refreshments for all!

 

Wednesday, September 10, 2025 at 20 Cooper Square
3:00 - 6:00 pm

First Floor:

Second Floor:

Third Floor:

Fourth Floor: 

Fifth Floor: 

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Escenas: Exhibition Opening
Sep
5

Escenas: Exhibition Opening

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

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Open Call: Academic Book Showcase
Aug
15

Open Call: Academic Book Showcase

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

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