Art Borderlands in Theory, Practice, and Teaching is the decolonial and interdisciplinary book of healing that we have been waiting for! I rewrote my syllabi as I read each chapter, applying Anzaldśan philosophy to teaching, theorizing about art, and art-making. Embracing the ambiguities, tensions, and contradictions of the borderlands, the authors make the case for a new pedagogy in art education. It's a survival tool for their students. Unless colonial logic and the deficit-model are desired by your art school, inhabitants of the borderlands no longer need to be left out of art school with this culturally sustaining resource.
- Karen Mary Davalos, Professor, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and author of Chicana/o Remix: Art and Errata Since the Sixties (NYU Press)
The authors draw from borderlands theories and lived experiences to guide art education practice to be inclusive of Latina/e/x and Chicana/o/x teaching frameworks. The book is significant to changing the course toward decolonizing art pedagogies, curricula, and syllabi, offering a must-needed resource on why and how to do so.
- Karen Keifer-Boyd, Ph.D., Professor of Art Education and Womens, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at The Pennsylvania State University
There's only one way to have a more polyvocal presence at the intersected table of contemporary art and its education. We need to have smart individuals, partners, and collaboratives adding their unique voices to the dynamic aggregate of the lived and archived experience, poquito a poquito. In Art Borderlands in Theory, Practice, and Teaching, Sotomayor and Garcia present us with an urgent creative work that does exactly that, chiseling away at broadly held academicisms that have invited us in, but mostly through the side door. Garcia and Sotomayor foreground our ways of knowing (talking, cooking, eating, making, closeness, proclamation, and in-betweeness) to present a one-of-a-kind Chicana/feminist/scholar/artist intertwinement, that engenders liberation and celebration everywhere from la sala through la cocina, then back and forth through the front, back, and side doors!
- Jorge Lucero, Professor of Art Education and Associate Dean for Research, College of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
