Ironically this period of time, for me and many others, particularly women of color, has been an extraordinary renaissance. After 40 to 50 years of working, all of a sudden people started paying attention to the work I was doing, which was never unknown but certainly was not broadly supported. This comes on the tail of people like Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, Lorraine O’Grady—a whole bevy of women of color. Their work came into prominence even though it was always known. So as usual, we get inside the door and we’re just about to move forward, and bang, along comes Trump.
We’re seriously fighting, as women of color, for the continued support of our work and how it reveals unknown stories and untold visions of our own communities. I feel even more strongly now—and I’ve been involved in resistance since the ’60s—that this is a time when we have to really stand up and fight. This is a time of counternarrative, where magazines like ARTnews have to speak up and speak back about what we’ve done and why our work is important and allow it to inspire people on a more working-class level, who are being hit so hard by this. I don’t like to think of us acknowledging going backwards. I don’t accept that. I feel like, we are the only ones to make the decision in which direction we are going, and we know where we are going. And it’s forward.
Because my own parents were undocumented, when I see these ICE sweeps, it makes me want to make more work.
Many of us never had children, but we are still co-mothers to each other, because we bore part of a movement. Even though we have aged and our lives have changed, and many of us are not well, and many of us have now died, we keep at it because having community and solidarity is what keeps you going when the art world doesn’t want to pay attention to you.
Showing in “Amalia Mesa-Bains: Archaeology of Memory,” at The Cheech in Riverside, California, through August 3.
