Introduction
This exhibit displays a variety of media, including but not limited to newsletters, magazines, murals, and comics. Despite the variation in presentation, all of these works share a commonality in that they were intended to be dispersed to a relatively small and often local audience, meaning that there is a sort of collective ownership of them by a small community--via these temporary mediums. We hope to create a snapshot of non majority networks of people throughout the 20th century, covering topics and groups not typically represented in mainstream media and literature. One of the most compelling aspects of this exhibit is that many of these pieces were not meant to last, or were intentionally covered up and/or destroyed, mirroring the erasure and ephemerality of many of the topics they intended to bring awareness to. Some of these pieces convey information in ways that come off as insensitive or tone deaf to the issues presented; however these narratives are still important, as they add another dimension to how we typically think about the past, and highlight how people communicated about sensitive or controversial subjects through media.
We could not have found many of the items featured in this exhibit without access to archival collections at the University of Texas campus, including the LLILAS Benson Latin American Collection, the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, and the Harry Ransom Center, which specializes in literature and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe. Despite the different focuses of these archives, our exhibit illustrates connections between the three centers, as all of our objects are indicative of mechanisms of activism, spread across various groups, places, and periods of time, connected by their medium of activism, and the ephemerality of the works created, as well as being a hidden voice in history.
Our exhibit is broken into subsections highlighting non-majority visibility in print media, media of protest, advocacy and activism, and visual art networks. Through these sections, various pieces are explored and analyzed in regards to media ephemerality and how non-majority communities communicate both with themselves and with others through creative outlets.
Credits: Sarah Brownson, Jenohn Euland, Zoe Roden, Vega Shah, Lucian Smith, Courtney Thomas
Works Included:
-"A Chile-Texas Connection" - Print Article from the Texas Observer
-"A Pentagon Papers Digest" written by the Indochina Information Project
- “All-Negro Comics”- Comic Book created by Orrin C. Evans
-An Interview with Allende: "You don't get Socialism Overnight" by the The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)
- Americana Fantastica issue of View Magazine, 2nd ser. 1942/43
- "El Precio del Engaño"- Fotonovela created by (H.A.C.E.R.), El Comite de Hispanos para Educación y Recursos sobe el SIDA, Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center Resident Theatre Company Los Actores of San Antonio
-"Gentrification" (El Centro Chicano mural): Raul Valdez
- "Los Elementos" (The Elements) Mural by Raul Valdez
-Mayday Pamphlet and Protest Guide on the 1971 Mayday protest in Washington D.C
-"Off Our Backs": A Woman's News-Journal, Volume 1 no. 5
-"Public Support is the Acid Test of Foreign Policy": Student Activism Protesting U.S. Cold War Imperialism in Chile - Flyer promoting protest at the University of Texas at Austin
- Tierra o Muerte Poster: Emanuel Martinez,1967, screenprint on paperboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum.