For Season Three, we are featuring the artists of THE BORDER IS A WEAPON exhibition curated by Gil Rocha and presented by Other Border Wall.  The exhibition features five artists from the US/MX border and was curated by Gil Rocha.  First opening in January 2022 at 937 Gallery in the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust  the show then traveled to the Laredo Center for the Arts in July 2022. Each interview is conducted by Tereneh Idia. Tereneh is the founder of Idia'Dega, an award-winning journalist, and the co-founder of Other Border Wall Project.

Maritza Bautista is a Tex-Mex/pocha multi-disciplinary artist, educator, and cultural worker from Laredo, Texas. She received a Master of Arts in Art Education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2009) and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a minor in Studio Art from Texas A&M International University (2002). Maritza was awarded the SAIC Masters Fellowship in Art Education (2009), and her essay Unique Voices in Youth Media was published in the book Art and Social Justice Education: Culture as Commons (2012). Her work has been screened at various festivals including the iFFY: Independent Film Festival Ypsilanti (2022), MIRAAA Media Fest (2021), San Antonio Film Festival (2019), and Cine Las Americas International Film Festival (2015). She has also presented her work at the Creating Justice Symposium (2022), PASSAGE Visions (2022), the Sixth Biennial IAS Conference Walls, Bridges, Borders (2021), and most recently the collective exhibitions The Border is a Weapon (2022) and Across (2021). Maritza started teaching in 2003 and has sustained meaningful, collaborative art practices that explore and create a dialectic milieu inhabited by issues unique to marginalized communities. She is the Executive Director for Daphne Art Foundation.  Her artistic practice explores scavenging, movement and transportation of goods as they relate to wealth along and across the U.S./Mexico border, the economic disparities that are visible and at times ironic, and survival mechanisms of working class people.

Links, topics mentioned

Gil Rocha, https://www.maakemagazine.com/gil-rocha

Latino Union of Chicago https://www.latinounion.org/

NAFTA https://www.thebalance.com/history-of-nafta-3306272

https://www.thebalance.com/disadvantages-of-nafta-3306273 https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/14/nafta-has-harmed-mexico-much-more-than-a-wall-will-ever-do/

Binational River Park https://cw39.com/news/nationworld/u-s-and-mexican-ambassadors-promote-binational-river-park-at-border-conference-in-d-c/

RISC Rio Grande International Study Center https://www.wavy.com/news/national/laredo-nonprofit-awarded-art-grant-for-anti-border-wall-initiatives/

No Border Wall https://noborderwallcoalition.com/

Tereneh Idia
Design work: www.IdiaDega.com
Writing: https://muckrack.com/tereneh-idia
Twitter: @TerenehIdia