UCR ARTS' California Museum of Photography presents "Transgresoras: Mail Art and Messages, 1960s–2020s," an exhibition guest co-curated by Zanna Gilbert of the Getty Research Institute and Elena Shtromberg of the University of Utah. Running from September 13, 2025, to February 15, 2026, the show features over 50 Latinx and Latin American women artists who used mail art to subvert authoritarian censorship, turning the government's own postal system into a tool for creative expression across militarized borders. The exhibition includes video, sculpture, paintings, prints, and installations, organized into thematic sections addressing state control, gender, migration, colonialism, and ecology.
This exhibition matters because it fills a significant gap in art historical scholarship, which has largely overlooked female artists within the mail art genre—especially Latinx and Latin American women. By highlighting how these artists resisted dictatorships and institutional confines while maintaining cross-border communication, the show reframes mail art as a powerful form of political and personal testimony. It also demonstrates how discarded packaging and intimate correspondence can be transformed into public art that documents collective struggles and resilience.