Exhibit: Latino cARTographies Digital Board

We are featuring an exhibit with the University of Houston that features Latin artists through an art digital board that also features our mural. Under the leadership of Dr. Pamela Anne Quiroz, Distinguished professor of sociology launched the groundbreaking digital board, Latino cARTographies: Mapping the Past, Present, and Future of Houston’s Latino Visual Art. The exhibit is on display from Friday, April 26, 2024 to December 31, 2027.

This portable, bilingual, and interactive digital board funded by the University of Houston is the result of a three-year collaboration led by Dr. Pamela Anne Quiroz, with the curatorial leadership of former vice president of the National Mexican Museum of Art in Chicago, Juana Guzman, the Latino cARTographies Research Team, and the International Gibson Group.

Tickets at the door are only $5 and include two other exhibits!

The idea for Latino cARTographies began when Dr. Quiroz organized the city of Houston to host the country’s premier Latino art event, Latino Art Now! Dr. Quiroz conceived the idea for the digital board and viewed it as a way to create a dynamic but permanent tribute to the Latino artists of Houston. She then persuaded the Gibson Group to collaborate with Latino cARTographies Research Team to achieve this goal. The result is a twenty-first-century mode to access the arts and experience culture – Latino cARTographies – that maps the past, present, and future of Houston’s Latino art. By utilizing technology that preserves, represents, and promotes Houston’s Latino visual arts and communities in an equitable and inclusive manner, Latino cARTographies Research Teamis transforming how we experience art in the twenty-first century.

Latino cARTographies features our commissioned a mural to celebrate the many contributions of our city’s Mexican-American community. In the spirit of the great Mexican muralists, this vibrant collective artwork, Mexican-American History & Culture in 20th Century Houston, highlights the places, personalities, concepts and events that shaped the Mexican-American community and laid the foundation for the multicultural city we live in today. Set in Connally Plaza against a dramatic backdrop of City Hall and the downtown skyline, the mural is a cultural landmark in the historic heart of Houston. This mural spotlights 38 places, personalities, and events that played a key role in the growth of this community and provides recognition for the countless and essential contributions of Mexican Americans to the economy, culture, and vitality of our city in the 1900s. Mural artists Laura López Cano and Jesse Sifuentes, along with key fundraisers and government officials celebrated the unveiling to Houstonians in September 2018 for National Hispanic Heritage Month. Since then, we have several outdoor activities being celebrated around the mural for National Hispanic Heritage Month and host field trips telling the stories behind the mural.  The vibrant mural, located at 1100 Bagby Street, is now complemented by the interactive, digital board that is inside our museum gallery.

Click HERE to read an article about the exhibit in Houston History Magazine.

About the Exhibitor: Latino cARTographies, University of Houston

Latino cARTographies is the country’s first portable, fully-bilingual, and user-oriented interactive digital board that maps Houston’s Latino visual art. With just a swipe of the finger, visitors to this museum-without-walls have access to more than 340 Latino artists, 8 Latino communities, 81 landmarks accompanied by first-person memorias and the ability to navigate everything in English or Spanish. Visitors can also meet the artists, view the production of art and art animated, and experience the Latino cultures of Houston, navigating through more than 5,000 images, multiple arts organizations, local public sites, virtual galleries, digital arts activities and scan QR codes that take the user directly to artists websites.

Thank you to the following:

Pamela Anne Quiroz, Ph.D. CLASS Distinguished Professor of Sociology

Debbie Z. Harwell, Ph.D. Editor, Houston History https://houstonhistorymagazine.org/ 

IG: @latinocart_uh  FB: @latinocartographies  Website:  www.latinocartographies.org