University of North Texas students, many of them dressed all in black, gathered in the art gallery at the College of Visual Arts and Design.
A Mexican flag was spread out a few paces from the gallery door, surrounded in tea lights.
The students protested UNT administrators’ unexplained decision to remove an exhibit, "Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá" ("Neither from here, nor from there") by renowned street artist Victor Quiñonez, also known as Marka27. Their protest took the form of a funeral.
After a few speeches, students laid flowers on the flag. Others wrote messages to UNT President Harrison Keller and administrators on index cards, then laid them around the flag and tucked them under candles. Most were written in English, and at least one was in Spanish.
UNT senior Sierra Rose Dominguez, who is majoring in art history while getting a minor in both classical studies and painting and drawing, coordinated the demonstration with a group of College of Visual Arts and Design students.
"I was super heartbroken, confused and very angry," Dominguez said about learning that the university had removed the exhibition. "And I just had this idea, this vision that I just saw — just having a Mexican flag and buying just a bouquet of flowers and just laying it down myself. It wasn't until I expressed that idea with my fellow students that ... they were like, 'We want in. Tell us what we've got to do to help you. How do we support you?'"
The protest follows an open letter that College of Visual Arts and Design faculty posted denouncing the decision to censor the exhibit. Administrators released a statement confirming that the exhibit — which explores Quiñonez's experience as a Mexican-born American living a bicultural and bilingual life — was being returned to Boston University.
The exhibit considers lives shaped by immigration, incarceration and resilience. And it includes work that pointedly criticizes U.S. immigration policy. Large sculptures of paletas, the famous Hispanic frozen treat-on-a-stick, contain handcuffs and revolvers. A paletero's cart is emblazoned with the words "ICE Scream" and an official-looking seal that reads: "U.S. Department of Stolen Land Security.
It was a chilly Monday morning at 9 when art students started arranging the flag and the candles. Other students brought bouquets of fresh flowers, and one box of red and white roses.
When students arrived, Dominguez and her peers offered a eulogy for the exhibit and the freedom and voices extinguished by the move to close the exhibition.
Sydney Lewandowski, a UNT student in the drawing and painting program, gave a eulogy.
"The only way to live is to create," Lewandowski said. "It is in our DNA to make. To rob someone's self-expression is to rob them of their humanity. We are gathered here today to mourn our rights to freedom of speech and to self-expression at UNT.
Dominguez and Lewandowski said the exhibit's removal stung because UNT is a Hispanic-Serving Institution, a federal designation for qualifying public universities and colleges that have a full-time student enrollment that is 25% or more Hispanic.
"UNT prides itself on the community it has created on campus," Lewandowski said. "They boast about being a diverse institution. ... UNT has made it clear it will silence you at a moment's notice. ... You do not build community on alienating people. You do get community by taking away space from marginalized individuals."
CVAD graduate students in studio art wrote a letter to Keller and Karen Hutzel, the dean of the College of Visual Arts and Design. They called on UNT leaders to clarify the process behind the move, to honor the contract the university made with Quiñonez, and for a public affirmation that UNT is committed to the freedom of speech without fear of retaliation.
"We join our faculty in objecting to this decision and request immediate transparency and accountability regarding the process that led to the cancellation, which was executed in contradiction of the university's stated exhibition policies," the letter reads.
Visual arts and design faculty shared an open letter condemning the cancellation of the exhibit last week, and said the removal of the art violates newly adopted policies governing art exhibits on campus.
"We are especially troubled by reports that departments may face punitive budget reductions or professional consequences — not for violating university policy, but for participating in the open exchange of ideas that defines artistic and academic practice," the graduate students' letter says. "Such conditions undermine the foundational principles of higher education."
UNT alumni have also posted an open letter.
"The removal undermines the legacy of former students whose university education was grounded in the principles of art making as an academic discipline that fosters global discourse on humanity and existence," their statement reads. "As graduates of this university, who are working artists in our professions and lives, the message matters. ... Many of us would not have otherwise had a space to engage in the world in this way, if it were not for an academic understanding of art at the College of Visual Arts and Design."
Dominguez said she's worried that speaking out might mean "I am probably on some people's radar now."
But she had to speak up, she said, because art and expression are an extension of the self and artist's bodies.
"I feel like, although I am a U.S. citizen, I was fearful for putting on the vigil," Dominguez said. "I had no idea if we would be met by any counterprotest, police force, ICE. It is scary even being an American and being brown, but I decided to take that risk."
"Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá" opened Feb. 3, and within days, the windows of the CVAD Gallery were covered. Days later, Quiñonez said he got word from the college that the exhibit was being returned to Boston University, where it was on exhibit from September to December last year. UNT's administration has not yet given any reason for the cancellation.
LUCINDA BREEDING-GONZALES can be reached at 940-566-6877 and cbreeding@dentonrc.com.
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