Performance: A Las Escondidas

In this brief performance at dusk, exhibiting artist José Villalobos uses everyday materials to critique machismo and confront the derogatory terms and homophobic attitudes that inform his lived experience. Growing up on the US/Mexico border in an Evangelical family, Villalobos was often caught between Mexican and American social mores and surrounded by religious doctrine that condemned being gay. A Las Escondidas (“Hide and Seek”) encompasses the process of navigating culturally conservative spaces as a queer individual, and one’s attempts to seek safety in such spaces. It underscores the violence of cultural assimilation, even when assimilating serves as a necessary form of protection. Through physically demanding labor and the transformation of familiar objects, A Las Escondidas depicts a battle between self-acceptance, being a maricón, and societal expectations.

Join us at Old Masonic Hall afterward for the opening of our newest exhibition, In Plain Sight: Queer Rural Narratives from the Water and the Land, and our winter Campus Crawl.