Gómez-Peña’s Mex Files: Border Notebooks

Portrait of Guillermo Gómez-Peña — Guillermo Gómez-Peña, courtesy of the artist.

A man sits upright at a table wearing a black hat, sunglasses, and an open black jacket with yellow shoulder pads exposing his chest with tattoos. A stack of white paper sits on the table along with a vase of flowers, an intricate ash tray with skulls, candles, and a plastic alien head labelled with the text “Alien Pops.” The room is red behind the seated figure, with artworks, photographs and carved items decorating the walls. A prominent neon sign that reads "La Nostalgia BAR” sits above the seated person.

The series Gómez-Peña’s Mex Files: Audio Art and Strange Poetry from the US/Mexico Border is a multi-lingual live radio and archived audio program by performance artist, writer, activist, and MacArthur fellow Guillermo Gómez-Peña addressing the multiple pandemics of racism, sexism, militarism, and colonialism.

Border Notebooks (1990) is part three of an anti-Columbus trilogy by Guillermo Gómez-Peña. This award-winning radio art piece was designed at Toucan Productions in Miami by the legendary duo of Elizabeth Perez-Luna and Len Persky.

Remixed by Charly García and Stephanie Manriquez.

Presented in partnership between Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Public Media institute, and the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art. The series is an initiative of Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change, and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40.

Gómez-Peña’s Mex Files: Audio Art and Strange Poetry from the US/Mexico Border

Smart Museum of Art

Guillermo Gómez-Peña

Public Media Institute

Jane Addams Hull-House Museum