Queer Latinx Arts in LA

Alma López Gaspar de Alba and Alicia Gaspar de Alba 

Join artist Alma López Gaspar de Alba and her partner, UCLA Professor Alicia Gaspar de Alba, for a conversation tracing queer Angeleno artists’ contributions to contemporary art. Their discussion will highlight the couple’s most recent artistic collaboration, which explores the controversial life of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the 17th-century Mexican nun, philosopher, composer, poet, and advocate for women.

Alma López Gaspar de Alba is a Mexican-born queer Chicana artist who has lived in Los Angeles since she was four years old. Her art often portrays historical and cultural Mexican figures filtered through a radical Chicana feminist lesbian lens. Alma’s work aims to empower women, queers, and indigenous identities through her reappropriation of Mexican symbols and icons. She earned her M.F.A. at U.C. Irvine in 1996, and is currently Assistant Professor in Residence at the UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies and UCLA’s LGBTQ Studies Program. Her website is almalopez.com.

Professor Alicia Gaspar de Alba is a scholar-activist with a Ph.D. in American Studies. Hired in 1994, Alicia is a founding faculty member and former Chair of the UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies (2007-10). She also chaired the LGBTQ Studies Program from 2013-19. Alicia has published 12 books, among them award-winning novels and academic volumes. Her research areas include Chicana/o art and culture, gendered violence on the U.S.-Mexico border, and Chicana feminist lesbian theory and literature. For more information, go to aliciagaspardealba.net.