Xelestiál Moreno-Luz
Trans Cultural Narratives in the Borderlands
Transgender communities in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and Tijuana, MX, are striving to maintain autonomy, dignity, and self-determination in a socio-political climate that co-opts their collective movement and refuses their livelihoods in the same breath. These photo works of transgender (trans) communities in the borderlands of Tijuana, MX and Ciudad Juárez, MX, highlight cultural modalities of education and community building.
This work is a lifelong commitment to shift discourses surrounding trans identities in the Borderlands. Trans communities continue to nurture one another in the face of scarcity and in an alarming anti-trans political landscape. Using trans liberation aesthetics, the work centers self-determination, imagination, and radical vulnerability. The sitters and social players in the collection of photographs are of communities who were at the time, residing in the Jardin De Mariposas (El Jardin), a holistic social services organization for migrants and LGBTQ+ communities in Tijuana. A majority of these women are migrants from other cities in the country of México, with a few of them being from different parts of Central America.
750 miles east, in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, there is a complex movement of trans cultural production occurring where transgender people are reimagining what the future can hold for trans people. Communities are creating advances for their people in the realms of performance, social advocacy, and cultural connectivity; both in person and via social media. The images of Juárez are a collection of environmental works documented in the Spring of 2022 and 2023.
Contributor Work
Transgender women, Paloma de Los Ángeles and Melisa Tovar, pose in front of El Palacio de Las Estrellas on Calle 16 de septiembre, Ciudad Juárez, MX, April 2023. Photograph by Xelestiál Moreno-Luz.
Contributor Profile
Xelestiál Moreno-Luz is a woman of transgender experience, interdisciplinary artist, and advocate living in Los Angeles (Tongva Nation), CA. Originally raised in Southeast & Central Los Angeles, she currently serves as the Program Manager at REACH LA – a historical arts organization that has empowered LGBTQ+ BIPOC communities in Los Angeles since 1992. Xelestiál’s approach to her art and social justice practice focuses on collective autonomy, memory, desire, self-determination, and enhancing the visual intelligence of her communities. Xelestiál currently holds a B.A. in Media from the University of California, San Diego, where her thesis work highlights Mexican and Colombian transgender identities building community through social movements and performance/performing arts. She also serves on the Los Angeles Executive Board of Somos LOUD, an affinity group under the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, working to enhance community interdependence for Latiné people resisting oppression across the diaspora.
Xelestiál’s visual work has been co-featured at the Museo Nacional de la Estampa, the Huntington, the Getty Museum, and on Rest for Resistance. Xelestiál’s speaking and workshop engagements include the California African American Museum, Chosen Family and the Photograph; University of California Berkeley, Arts in Times of Crisis; Princeton University, Hispanic Heritage Month, LGBTQ+ Latiné Social Movements; Harvard University, LGBTQ+ Identity in Latin America; and national conferences like NAESM, Biomedical HIV Prevention Summit, and the United States Conference on HIV and AIDS.