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How can we reimagine value to create abundance and possibility? New economies will require a shift in social awareness and a return to the wisdoms of first peoples.
Check out our Taller de Permiso project on this field scan for creative placemaking and alterrnative economies.
American Roundtable is an Architectural League initiative, bringing together on-the-ground perspectives on the condition of American communities and what they need to thrive going forward.
This presentation and discussion, captured in the video above, complements the report Brownsville Undercurrents on the city of Brownsville, Texas, the southernmost American city on the US–Mexico border. Report editors Lizzie MacWillie, Jesse Miller, Josué Ramirez and report contributors Amanda Davé, Zoraima Diaz-Pineda, Edna Ledesma, and ChristinaMaria Xochitlzihuatl Patiño Houle shared findings and highlights and then discussed some of the report’s key ideas and provocations with American Roundtable project director Nicholas Anderson and Architectural League executive director Rosalie Genevro.
In this essay, Las Imaginistas cofounder ChristinaMaria Xochitlzihuatl Patiño Houle reflects on Taller de Permiso (Permission Workshop), which looks at the permitting systems and regulations around street vending and the ways in which they help shape public space and economic development in Brownsville.
Local activists in the Rio Grande Valley are frustrated with Elon Musk’s SpaceX operation in Boca Chica, just east of Brownsville. Their concerns range from blocked public access to parks and beaches to long-term ecological damage to region-wide gentrification.
Now, activists in the region are shifting to more creative strategies to address the evolving political climate in the Rio Grande Valley.
We asked Las Imaginistas for their thoughts on public space and equity in Brownsville. —Lizzie MacWillie, Kelsey Menzel, Jesse Miller, and Josué Ramirez, Brownsville Undercurrents editorse.
Forecast Public Art celebrates the release of ArtPlace: 10 Years, a publication that tells the story of ArtPlace America.
Established in 2010 as a 10-year entity “to amplify the power of the arts in building healthy, equitable, and sustainable communities,” ArtPlace did something that had never been done before. Over the last year Forecast collaborated with the ArtPlace team to produce a book telling its decade long story.
5 Things Funders Can Do to Become Anarcho - Scyborgs Hatching Liberation, an essay by ChristinaMaria Xochitlzihuatl Patiño Houle, is part of CREATIVE FUTURES, a series of provocations by thinkers across the arts, documentary, and journalism on how to reimagine their sectors.
ChristinaMaria Xochitlzihuatl Patiño Houle, co-founder and Chief Architect for Las Imaginistas tells us that COVID-19 has taken people's lives and livelihoods in her community. The messaging to help slow and prevent the spread of the virus is failing to reach historically underserved communities, but in the Rio Grande Valley, artists are taking up the charge, responding to community needs.
A crowd gathers around a model made of painted clay buildings, hand-drawn street grids, pieces of yarn, and other chucherias (knick-knacks) depicting a future downtown Brownsville, Texas, and its connection to Matamoros, Mexico. It’s the result of months of dialogues, bike rides, and making workshops led by Las Imaginistas, an art collective. Their project, Hacemos La Ciudad (We Make the City), is a civic reimagining of Brownsville.
In a year-long program that included bike rides, serenades, and Dragtivist performances, an art collective guided Brownsville, Texas, residents in reimagining how they could influence equity and justice in their city.
Las Imaginistas co-founder, Christina Houle, joins Alan Nakagawa on “Visitings” to discuss the founding of Las Imaginistas and our Taller de Permiso project.
Artist and activist ChristinaMaria Xochitlzihuatl Patiño Houle, shares her deep unease with the traditional interview process and describes her own listening practice when she visits and learns from Indigenous communities throughout the Americas.