Fabián Leyva-Barragán is a curatorial fellow in the Visual Arts Department at the Walker Art Center, where he coordinated Adiós Utopia: Dreams and Deceptions in Cuban Art Since 1950 along with former Walker executive director Olga Viso. Currently he is working on the upcoming mid-career survey show of Mario García Torres, Illusion Brought Me Here which opens at the Walker and then travels to WIELS, Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels, Belgium.
Migrant Power and Music: In Conversation with Chhoti Maa
“We have constantly been regarded as subhuman by different oppressive forces, as part of a strategy for our dispossession and the continual denial of our dignity and life,” says Mexico-born, Oakland-based organizer and musician Vreni Michelini Castillo. In a Walker Reader exclusive, she shares her single “Sol,” recorded under the moniker Chhoti Maa, and discusses her art practice, a recent ritual/performance at the US/Mexico border, and the song’s aim—to “negate that racist narrative and illustrate the ways in which we defend ourselves.”