Identity politics, untold stories and creative actions: Mundo Latinx at Fashion Space Gallery

The gender-neutral neologism ‘LatinX’ gained popularity since the early 2000s, and is currently used, in lieu of ‘Latino’ or ‘Latina’, by advocacy groups and activists to refer to the Latin American cultural, gender and racial identity, beyond any binarism and racial stereotype.

This diversity and inclusivity is precisely the main focus of the exhibition Mundo LatinX (Fashion Space Gallery, London, 8 February–4 April 2019), which displays the work of seventeen contemporary artists, designers and activists addressing questions about identity politics and representations of Latin Americans within a variegated and ever-evolving political, social and cultural context. Cultural theorist Stuart Hall poignantly explains that essentialist conceptions of national identity tend to rely on the idea of cultural identity as ‘an unfolding essence, moving apparently without change, from past to future’ ([1993] 2005: 38).

The article critically reflects on the exhibition LatinX and features interviews with the curators White Line Projects, and with artists, scholars and activists Sabrina Collares and Lucia Cuba.