Gómez-Peña’s Mex Files: P.C. “The Pandemia Chronicles,” Part 2

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 are 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.

P.C. “The Pandemic Chronicles,” Part 2 expands on the earlier volume and includes poems written over the past year and a half in direct response to multiple Pandemias at play including COVID, the virus of fear, racism, confinement & mental illness. This particular program speaks to the ongoing and long-lasting dangers of lock-down.

Produced 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.