This exhibition is sponsored by The Lone Star Art Alliance.
Dock Space Gallery is pleased to announce Inhabiting Nepantla: Exploring the Layers of Border Identity Curated by Aleida García, Cultural Arts Director for the City of San Benito, Texas. This multidisciplinary group exhibition brings together contemporary artists working across painting, installation, mixed media, and printmaking to explore the layered cultural, political, and emotional landscapes of the borderlands of South Texas.

Participating artists include Francisco Javier Dragustinovis (installation, conceptual art) and Michel Flores Tavizón (illustration, installation, printmaking), both from Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico; Enrique Palacios Alvarez (printmaking), who works across both Matamoros and Brownsville, TX; and from the San Benito, Texas side, Ramon Claudio, Alyssa Christiansen (both working in mixed media), and Cecilia Sierra (painting, printmaking, textile).

Inhabiting Nepantla draws inspiration from scholar, writer, and thinker Gloria Anzaldúa, whose seminal workBorderlands/LaFronterareframestheborderasbothaphysicalandspiritualspace. This exhibition highlights the state of nepantla—the in-between, the place of transition, tension, and transformation. In the Rio Grande Valley, this state of in-betweeness defines daily life: it is where cultures meet, languages blend, and identities are constantly negotiated.

The exhibition navigates five interwoven themes that reflect the dynamic realities of life along and across borders. Artists reflect on Roots and Histories, uncovering Indigenous presence and intergenerational migration narratives that shape collective memory. Tradition and Ritual surfaces through works that celebrate music, food, beliefs, and bilingualism as vital, evolving cultural expressions. The concept of Nepantla — a Nahuatl term meaning "in-between" — frames the border as a space of hybridity and cultural negotiation, where identities are fluid and new forms emerge.Resistance and Resilience threads through the exhibition in powerful visual narratives that confront displacement, amplify voices of survival, and champion social justice. Finally, Contemporary Expressions highlights bold, future-facing work by emerging artists who are reimagining what border culture can be not defined by division, but shaped by possibility, connection, and creative vision.
“By contextualizing the exhibition around these layers, we present a dynamic portrait of border culture in the Rio Grande Valley as both deeply rooted and continuously evolving” explains Aleida García. Inhabiting Nepantla: Exploring the Layers of Border Identity calls attention to the border in all its forms beyond a simple dividing line. With Anzaldúa in mind, the border is also a place of transformation, where worlds meet, clash, and create something new.

Opening Reception is September 13, 2025 from 6-9pm as part of the Second Saturday Artwalk in the Lone Star Art District. 107 Lone Star Blvd, San Antonio, TX 78204. The exhibition is up through September, and the gallery is open by appointment. Call Bill FitzGibbons at 210-723-3048 to view outside of the reception times.