The Valle de Xico Community Museum in the State of Mexico celebrates 25 years of resistance this year. Maria Thereza Alves has worked with the museum since 2009 and through collaborations the installation, The Return of a Lake, was made. The museum was closed by the municipality in 2019 by what the community considers an illegal act. The museum requests dissemination of this situation. As a result, further collaborations resulted in performative works and the on-going project, Son del Pueblo, an attempt through social media not only to re-make artifacts that are no longer accessible to the community but also to make the collection available beyond Xico.

Alves is a Brazilian artist. She participated in the Sydney Biennale (2020), Toronto Biennale (2019), Manifesta 12 in Palermo and 7 in Trento, Sao Paulo Biennale (2016 and 2010), and others. She had a solo exhibit at MUAC in Mexico City, a survey exhibit at CAAC in Seville, and received the Vera List Prize for Art and Politics from 2016-2018. In 1978, as a member of the International Indian Treaty Council, Alves presented on human rights abuses of the indigenous population of Brazil at the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva. Alves was also a founding member of the Green Party of Sao Paulo in 1987. Recent books include Recipes for Survival published by University of Texas Press, and Thieves and Murderers in Naples: A Brief History on Families, Colonization, Immense Wealth, Land Theft, Art and the Valle de Xico Community Museum in Mexico published by Di Paolo Edizioni.

Presented by the Berkeley Center for New Media and the Center for Latin American Studies. Co-sponsored by Spanish & Portuguese, the Center for Race and Gender, the Arts Research Center, and The American Indian Graduate Program.

Participants and topics are subject to change; visit Berkeley Arts + Design (artsdesign.berkeley.edu) for the most up-to-date series information.