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Christen García

Associate Professor

Department of Art Education

From the San Diego/Tijuana borderlands, Dr. Christen S García’s writing, visual, and performative work is rooted in borderlands ways of knowing. She is co-founder of the Nationwide Museum Mascot Project (NWMMP), a performance project that playfully unsettles the boundaries between art institutions, artists, communities, and the public. NWMMP hasperformed at more than forty venues across the Americas, including Museo Jumex (Mexico City), the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), Museo de Arte Moderno (Bogotá), the Fowler Museum at UCLA, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Lima, and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. García’s scholarship appears in leading peer-reviewed journals such as Art Education, The Drama Review, and the Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy. She is co-editor of BIPOC Alliances: Building Community and Curricula (2023) and co-author, with Leslie C. Sotomayor II, of Art Borderlands in Theory, Practice, and Teaching (Routledge, 2025). With over two decades of teaching experience, García has worked across university, K–12, museum, vocational, and community settings in the U.S., Mexico, Guatemala, and Cambodia. 

Education History

Ph.D., Art Education, Theatre Minor & Latina/x Studies focus, The Pennsylvania State University

M.F.A., Studio Art (Sculpture/4D), California State University, Long Beach

B.S., Studio Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Publications 

BOOKS 

García C.S., & Sotomayor, L.C. (in production). Art borderlands in theory, art practice, and teaching. Routledge.

Bailey, I., García C.S., Reed, G., & Sotomayor, L.C. (Eds.). (2023). BIPOC Alliances: Building Communities and Curricula. Information Age Publishing.

 

PEER-REVIEWED JOURNALS 

Garcia, C. S. & Sotomayor, L. (accepted). Validating Borderlands Languages: Linguistically and Culturally Sustaining Art Pedagogies, Art Education.

McCormack-Whittemore, C., & García, C. S. (2025). (Re)Designing nepantla lived experiences through zine-ing. Visual Arts Research, 51(1), 97-109. https://doi.org/10.5406/21518009.51.1.11

Sotomayor, L. C, & García, C.S. (2025). nepantlando: nepantla in creative action. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 46(1), 218-226. https://doi.org/10.1353/fro.2025.a962963

García, C.S. (2025). Book Review: Charlie, Are you Dreaming? By Stefanie Heyden & Fabian Grolimund. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 53(3), 362-364. https://doi.org/10.1080/01926187.2024.2439400

García, C. S., & Sotomayor, L.C., & Sandoval, K.* (2024). Visual pláticas: An Anzaldúan art praxis. Chicana/Latina Studies: The Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social, 24(1), 94-119.

Sotomayor, L. C, & García, C.S. (in production). nepantlando: nepantla in creative action. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 46(1).

McCormack-Whittemore, C., & García, C.S. (accepted for publication). (Re)Designing nepantla lived experiences through zine-ing. Visual Arts Research.

García, C.S., Gutierrez, M*., Leal, K.*, & Hernandez, J.* (2023). Mobile arte museos: Creating spaces through nepantla. Art Education, 76(1), 73-78.

García, C.S. (March 2022) Nepantlando: From borderlands foods to classroom acts of Nepantla, Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 19(1), 69-92, DOI: 10.1080/15505170.2020.1845882

García, C.S. (Fall 2020). tortillas remezclas///entre///rio grande valley/happy valley/milwaukee/los angeles/tamaulipas/sandiego/tijuana/art/identity/pedagogy. Chiricu Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures, 5(1), 110-117. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/chiricu.5.1.09

Sotomayor, L., & García, C.S. (2019). Needlework: Forging pedagogical spaces through fabric patterns, mapping, and childbirth. Art Education, 72(4), 43-49.

García, C.S. (2018). Materialized practices of food as borderlands performing as pedagogy. Journal of Social Theory in Art Education JSTAE, 38, 65-74.

García, C.S. (2018). Dancing with the Zapatistas [Review of the book Dancing with the Zapatistas, by D. Taylor and L. Novak]. The Drama Review TDR, 237(2), 214.

García, C.S., & Sullivan, G. (2016). Re-forming and performing David Ecker’s awkward insight. Visual Arts Research, 42(2), 22-33.

 

BOOK CHAPTERS – Third Party Peer-Reviewed

Castillo, A.*, Medina de León, E., Sotomayor, L.C., García, C.S (accepted). El Mundo Zurdo 10. Aunt Lute.

García, C.S., Rangel, A.A.*, Vite, L. I*., Sandoval, K.*, Cano, N.*, Flores Tavizón, M.*, & Grimaldo, K.* (2024). CURRICUL-ARTE: Artist acts of autohistoria-teoría within borderlands espacios. In A. B. Pratt, K. Donley, S. Hatch, & S. L. Tharp, & F. Calderon-Berumen (Eds.), Walking Away: Refusing and Resisting Reactionary Curriculum Movements, pp. 219–243. Information Age Publishing.

Sotomayor, L. C, & García, C.S. (2023) Nepantlando: A borderlands approach to curating, art practice, and teaching. In M. Sharma & A. Alexander (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Decolonizing Art, Craft, & Visual Culture Education. Routledge.

García, C.S., Sotomayor, L. C., Rosales, A.,* Salinas, N.,* Ramos, A. M.,* Gonzalez, E.* Sullivan, R.,* Guerrero, R.,* Wilson, M.,* & García, L.,*(2023). Visual testimonios: Artist/writer acts of resistance and recovery. In I. Bailey, C. S. García, G. Reed, & L. C. Sotomayor, (Eds), BIPOC Alliances: Building Community and Curricula. Information Age Publishing.

García, C.S. (2022). ///borderlands///arte///remezcla///pedagogy///entre///el valle///HSI///san diego///. El Mundo Zurdo 8: Planetary citizenship: Anzaldúan thought across communities, histories, cultures. Aunt Lute.

Cantu, I*., Sanchez, J.*, Varela, M.*, Casas, M.*., & Salinas, M.*, García, C.S. (2020). Performing Nepantla: Spanglish as Visual Art Practice in the Rio Grande Valley Borderlands. In M. Ruby, M. Angelo-Rocha, M. Hickey, & V. Agosto (Eds.), Making a Spectacle: Examining Curriculum/Pedagogy as Recovery from Political Trauma. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

García, C.S., Rodriguez, F., Zúñiga, X., & Carpenter, B. S. (2018). Thinking in water: The process of collaborative craft as social practice. In E. Garber, L. Hochtritt, & M. Sharma (Eds.), Makers, crafters, educators: Working for cultural change. Routledge.

 

BOOK CHAPTERS – Other

Sotomayor, L. & García, C. (accepted). Borderlands and beyond: Linguistically and culturally sustaining art pedagogies. In D. M. Cole-Mallot, & M. Brasof (Eds.) Creating Systemic Change for Social Justice Education: Shifting the Education Ecosystem. Teachers College Press.

Sotomayor, L. C, & García, C.S. (accepted). Visual pláticas: La galaxia tortilla. In M.D. Goodwin, C. Merla-Watson, T. Taylor, S. Vaquera-Vásquez (Eds.). Latinx Visions: Speculative Worlds in Latinx Literature, Art, & Performance. Ohio State University Press.

García, C.S., & Sotomayor, L.C., (2024). Nepantlando: Visual teaching through curadora methodologies. In H. J. Bessette & C. Sutton-Brown (Eds.), Utilizing Representation in Educational Research. Information Age Publishing.

Bailey, I., Sotomayor, L.C., García, C.S., & Reed, G. (2023). Introduction. In I. Bailey, C. S. García, G. Reed, & L. C. Sotomayor, (Eds), BIPOC Alliances: Building Community and Curricula. Information Age Publishing.

García, C.S. (2022). Foreword. In Sotomayor, L.C., Teaching In/Between: Curating educational spaces with autohistoria-teoría and conocimiento (pp. xvii-xxii). Veron Press.