Brownsville exhibition on South Texas history, injustices set to open Saturday

To celebrate the opening of an exhibition about the history of South Texas and how artists creatively challenge racial and environmental injustices, a reception and artist talk will be held Saturday in Brownsville.

“Nuestra Delta Mágica: Settler Imaginaries & Community Resistance” will open on April 1 and run through June 1 at 924 E. Levee Suite B in Brownsville. The exhibition will be free and open to the public, and is bilingual with English and Spanish labels.

Co-Curators Nansi Guevara and Monica Sosa led the exhibition, which will investigate untold South Texas history of land settlement while addressing racial and environmental injustices happening in the Rio Grande Valley.

The exhibition presents an opportunity to examine previous misconceptions, question harmful border narratives and activate a space that will allow community members to collectively craft, define and redefine our own identities as “fronteriza/o/xs,” the release stated.

“Nuestra Delta Mágica: Settler Imaginaries & Community Resistance” will be organized into three sections, with the overarching themes examining the historical and modern impact of land exploitation and environmental challenges in South Texas:

>> “Settler Imaginaries” is a series of large archival images, articles and academic writings that demonstrate the early 20th century “colonizer gaze” of the borderlands;

>> “Community Resistance” will highlight the work of six border artists — Josue Ramirez, Anel Flores, Futuro Conjunto, ENTRE, Tony Briones and Bonnie Ilza Cisneros — creating work in response to environmental colonization;

>> “La Delta Mágica” is a collective imaginary where community members will have an opportunity to explore and respond to the exhibit, and the emotions and memories it evokes.

Following the opening of the exhibit, there will be a reception from 6 to 9 p.m., with an artist talk at 7 p.m. followed by a Q&A.