In this episode we speak to multi-disciplinary and social practice artist Patricia Vázquez Gómez. Patricia breaks down how she uses art as a tool for investigation and to create situations which uncover tensions between visibility and invisibility. She reflects on her relationships with various resistance movements in Mexico and how she strives to remain accountable as she walks into a movement or resistance situation as an artist, navigating the work and privilege of the role in artist as 'activist'. Patricia also touches on her relationship to her queer identity, indigenous sexuality, along with the the importance of artists ethics, political awareness, and how critical it is to be accountable to what is driving you as an artist.

Patricia Vázquez Gómez works and lives between Portland and Mexico City. Her practice includes a range of media, from painting and murals to video and socially engaged art projects, and it is deeply informed by her experiences working in the immigrant rights and other social justice movements in the US, and by the zapatismo and indigenous movements in Mexico, both in content and in the methodologies she uses.

This conversation was hosted by Ginger Dunnill of Broken Boxes Podcast

Shared Wisdom. Social Practice work of Patricia Vázquez Gómez

"I think that when we are doing work about other people's trauma, we have to be very careful about how we are doing that... I don't think we should not do the work, but I think there are ways in which we can do this type of work that is responsible and sensitive. I also believe that there are no formulas for doing any kind of work in the most perfect or ethical way, all we have is our values and our sense of what's responsible and what's respectful" -Patricia Vázquez Gómez