CULTURAL CENTERS AS NEIGHBORHOOD HAVENS: AN INTERVIEW WITH LIBERTAD O. GUERRA

Activist Estates (installation detail) commissioned by Libertad O. Guerra as the last exhibit she produced at the Loisaida Center; curated by Nandini Bagshee, 2018.

By Alva Mooses

Update (3/30/2020): The bulk of this interview was done a few weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic, but it has recently been updated to more closely reflect the present critical moment.

Libertad O. Guerra is an urban anthropologist, curator, and cultural organizer/producer. Her work has taken place in a range of geographic, social, and urban contexts, including Puerto Rico, Canada, Berlin, and in New York City, from neighborhoods in the Bronx to the Lower East Side (LES) where she has recently taken on the position as Executive Director of The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Education Center (The Clemente) after serving as the Director and Chief Curator at the Loisaida Center since 2014. 

I reached out to Libertad to discuss her long commitment to such critical cultural centers, the opportunities she envisions for Latinx artists with her new role at The Clemente, and the ways in which this all relates to her larger trajectory. 

Alva Mooses: I am interested in what drew you to working in cultural centers such as the Loisaida Center and The Clemente. Can you describe the role of such important cultural centers in supporting visual artists, how they create space for radical art and diverse aesthetics, especially in our current political climate?

Libertad O. Guerra: Cultural centers, if well done, are sanctuary spaces that can serve multiple purposes supportive of communities on the ground; including communities of artists. A cultural center can be a repository of memories, a kind of gym for organizers, a place where dissimilar voices come meet and argue, a place of experimentation for artists, a place where folks can come try and fail in safety; cultural centers are places against loneliness but that can offer solitude when needed; a place for intergenerational dialogue; where community assets are not measured only in terms of money. All neighborhoods have a need for this; these are the things that make places healthy; but that is especially the case in Loisaida/Lower East Side, an international icon and community. 

Bimbo Rivas and Chino Garcia flanked by Tom Rollins and Joseph “Slima” Williams in La Plaza Cultural. Photo by Marlis Momber.

AM: You have worked extensively in both academia and as an activist in various cultural spaces, what are important differences for you?

LG: Community. Academia’s rat race environment is not easily conducive to meaningful and deep collaboration. Most folks in academia are crushed and abused by the system (most academic workers are adjuncts), and many folks just go home tired and retire if they get lucky enough to ‘make it’ in academia. Very few people comparatively speaking, keep the community vibe flowing. The system simply does not reward Mr. Rodgers-like behavior.

Cultural centers, on the other hand, should be about precisely that type of neighborliness. At least they are about that for me; and I think that is why I have this relatively numerous group of folks that sort of accompany me on this road wherever I go. Because I hate loneliness, and whenever I set shop I go all out to create a welcoming, collaborative, mix-up, neighborly, hopefully courageous space of company, mingling, some needed irreverence, and sharing.

I also think, cultural/community centers serve as perfect segways and platforms for scholars to share their work on more democratized settings, and confront it with outside the ivory tower feedback from community residents, activists, students, cultural workers, etc.

Libertad O. Guerra in conversation with Nandini Bagshee at the Loisaida Center. Photo by Melvin Audaz.