I Want to Dance with You

I Want to Dance with You focuses on five contemporary Mexican women artists--Gina Arizpe, Melissa García, Nuria Montiel, Brenda Anayatzin Ortiz, and Laura Valencia--analyzing their artistic projects since the early 2000s as a response to escalations in the Mexican drug war, feminicide, state-sanctioned violence, and globalization. Employing the Red de Feminismos Descoloniales's (RFD's) concept of descolonización to examine the delegitimization of subjective knowledges as a means to uphold colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy, Alberto McKelligan Hernández analyzes the work of these artists as a form of resistance against the state's authoritarian policies. He shows how these artists confront these social and state problems through innovative art projects that foster resistance and solidarity among Mexico's diverse communities, and how their works collectively reimagine a more hopeful and egalitarian future for Mexico.

Alberto McKelligan Hernández is Associate Professor of Art History at the Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design, Portland State University.