Celia Alvarez Munoz

The conceptual multimedia artist Celia Álvarez Muñoz’s work spans over four decades of merging bicultural traditions with various art forms in this monograph. Personal folklore involving family narratives in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands is emphasized here by the artist’s distinct intelligence and startling use of language. Tejada notes the sophisticated forms in Álvarez Muñoz’ multimedia practice as she crafts an engagement with visual and vernacular anecdotes in a reversal of social and cultural norms. Álvarez Muñoz’s art rescues pleasure and humor from the obstacles not only she and others have faced; her art and social practice serve as a lesson plan of sorts. Alternative forms of joyful learning can be encountered to resist the austere pedagogies that perpetuate narratives of dominance.