The Clemente Center and BronxArtSpace Present ¡TE AMO PORQUE S.O.S PUEBLO! An Immigration Exhibition and Information Portal

The Clemente Center and BronxArtSpace Present

On View at BronxArtSpace
700 Manida Street, Bronx, NY, 10474
April 25 – May 25, 2025

Maria de la Paz Galindo, Oaxaca-piña (2023). Photograph of a woman wearing a traditional Chiapaneco costume.

New York, NY – April 15, 2025 – The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center and the BronxArtSpace are pleased to present ¡Te Amo Porque S.O.S Pueblo!, an exhibition of works by immigrant artists who came to the US as undocumented minors and artists with a family history of crossing borders. Co-curated by artists Maria Ponce, Marco Saavedra, and Blanka Amezcua, the exhibition will also serve as an information center with advice and resources provided by local organizations working directly with immigrant communities. ¡Te Amo Porque S.O.S Pueblo! will be on view from April 25 to May 25, 2025, at BronxArtSpace.

“We know that the only way to resist the hateful policies of ‘enforcement through attrition’ is by caring for our community with love,” Ponce, Saavedra, and Amezcua collectively shared.

The exhibition features works by more than 30 artists, whose last names are kept anonymous to ensure their safety: Alejandra, Alexis, Aurelio, Blanka, Cinthya, Cristian, Daniela, Dialekto, Elena, Erika, Eufemia, Eugenia, Gabriel, Itzi, Jose Luis, Katherine, Leslie, Marco, Margarita, Maria, Mary, MaryJose, Niceli, Odalys, Odette, Patricia, Paulina, Rigo, Ruddy, Sonia, Talita, Tammy, and Zenaida. The artists work in various mediums, including archival family photos, watercolor, embroidery, and screenprinting; some apply their craftwork and hobbies under the guidance of the curatorial team to create works of contemporary art for the first time.

¡Te Amo Porque S.O.S Pueblo! takes its name from the poem by the Uruguayan poet Mario Benedetti, “Te Quiero,” which translates to “I love you because you are my people,” with “sos” (“are”) stylized to highlight a state of emergency. Many of the works on view either document or reference the immigration process. Together, they emphasize love, sanctuary, and nourishment as a response to the current climate of hate, racism, deportations, and terror.

The exhibition is supported by The Clemente and LxNY as part of Historias, an expansive multiyear initiative charting the impact of Latinx communities in New York City. Spanning citywide cultural programming and scholarship, Historias serves as a living repository of interconnected histories—consolidating archival research, oral narratives, and multimedia storytelling to preserve and elevate Latine presence across the five boroughs.

BronxArtSpace will activate the exhibition with a series of community events, providing food, informational pamphlets, and legal advice on immigration and deportation to create a care network that outlives the gallery space. All events are open to the public and located at BronxArtSpace, 700 Manida Street, Bronx, NY, 10474.

Events
Opening Celebration
Friday, April 25, 2025
5:00 pm–8:00 pm
Food will be provided by La Morada restaurant, a mutual aid restaurant that first opened during the COVID-19 pandemic to serve the Bronx community.

Information Portal
Saturday, April 26, 2025
11:00am – 5:00pm
Organizations including Rapid Response, Plaza Proletaria, and the New York Legal Assistance Group, will be on-site to provide presentations, pro bono legal advice, and a guide to rapid response in the face of deportation.

Colectivo VOCES Presentation and Feast
Saturday, May 10, 2025
12:00pm – 3:00pm
Colectivo VOCES, a collective of Indigenous immigrant women from Guerrero, Mexico, will present a series of cookbook zines preserving Mixtec recipes that were previously passed along orally. The zines are a result of research conducted by Liana Collective as part of the Las Yerbas artist residency conducted at Canal Projects.

Closing Celebration
Saturday, May 24, 2025
5:00pm – 8:00pm
Participating artist Tu’un Savi and Mixtec poet Nadia López García will introduce #Quebrantoa, a poetry book by Marco Nieto about his migration from Oaxaca to the U.S. Food will be provided by La Morada Restaurant, a mutual aid restaurant that first opened during the COVID-19 pandemic to serve the Bronx community.

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About BronxArtSpace
Founded and opened to the public in 2010 as a space for art exhibits and performances, BronxArtSpace (BAS), a 501C3 organization, is a community-based organization committed to supporting local and often under-resourced artists, fostering projects that engage vital social, educational, and political concerns.

Through curating group exhibitions, offering a residency program for Bronx artists, and providing meeting space for artist-led workshops and community-based interest groups, BAS combines forces with similar non-profit organizations to enhance the cultural vitality of their immediate and extended neighborhood.

Located in the densest concentration of public housing in the US, BAS creates programs that represent and inspire its community. BAS works to ensure that Bronx-based artists comprise at least 45% percent of exhibiting artists, and that both women and artists of color are the majority of those presented through their programming.

About The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center
Founded in 1993, The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center is a Puerto Rican/Latinx multi-arts institution with an inclusive and international vision rooted in NYC’s Lower East Side/Loisaida. The Clemente engages diverse audiences in heritage preservation, neighborhood history, and cutting-edge multicultural experimentation, emphasizing the humanities’ role in bridging civic and cultural life.

As a downtown cultural mainstay for three decades, they focus on cultivating, presenting, and preserving Puerto Rican and Latinx culture while embracing a multi-ethnic and international perspective. Committed to operating in a polyphonic manner, The Clemente provides affordable spaces to artists, small arts organizations, and independent community producers, reflecting the rich cultural diversity of the Lower East Side and New York City. Guided by their namesake’s values of culturally grounded multigenerational leadership, local empowermmoent, and mutuality, The Clemente is a collaborative hub for creating and co-producing multidisciplinary contemporary work.

Historias is organized by The Clemente’s Curatorial and Programs team: Libertad O. Guerra, Executive Director and Chief Curator; Sofía Reeser del Rio, Associate Director of Programs and Curator; and Sally Szwed, Strategic Growth and Special Projects Director.

The Clemente is a proud co-founder/partner of LxNY Consortium and the Coalition of Small Arts NYC (CoSA NYC).

About LxNY
LxNY | Latinx Arts Consortium of New York is a collaborative peer network dedicated to knowledge exchange, resource-sharing, and collective action towards systemic change. Formed in 2020 by organizations serving Latinx communities and artists across New York City, LxNY aims to transform the historical underfunding of Latinx arts by advocating for the equity-driven missions of our cultural institutions, nurturing our deep relationships with community, and stewarding our hard-fought legacies into the future. Advancing cultural work as essential work, LxNY honors the expertise of our multigenerational arts leaders and culture bearers, harnessing their collective experience to better serve the city’s diverse cultural landscape.

The LxNY Historias Working Group comprises six organizations within the Consortium that will play key roles as programmatic partners and advisors for the initiative. This group is represented by the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI), Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (Pregones/PRTT), People’s Theater Project (PTP), Bronx Music Heritage Center (BMHC), Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX), and New Latin Wave.

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For images, further background, or interviews, please contact:

Katrina Stewart
Senior Account Coordinator, Visual Arts
Blue Medium
T: +1-212-675-1800
katrina@bluemedium.com

Fernando Salazar
Communications Manager
LxNY
info@lxnyarts.org