American Lived Experiences of Liminality: Artists Acts of Nepantla, Autohistoria-teoría, and Curadora

In this paper, I examine a multi-dyed tortilla series, Tortillando (2025), using a methodology of nepantlando– artist/teacher acts of liminality– that employs a framework of nepantla, autohistoria-teoría, and curadora (García & Sotomayor, 2025). Originating from a Nahuatl word, nepantla is an ideological space of existing in-between worlds (Anzaldúa, 1987), a "space from which to think” (Mignolo, 1995), a “postconquest condition of cultural fragmentation” (Perez, 2007, p. 21). Embodying a broad range of art practices and ideas, “nepantla aesthetics” offer complex and contradictory ways of being and making (Davalos, 2024). Autohistoria-teoría uses lived experiences to theorize, a way to create new knowledge through personal and collective lived experiences (Anzaldúa, 2015; Keating, 2022). Curadora or curator is a type of healer or a facilitator that requires crossing back and forth using creative acts that heal and transform (Sotomayor, 2022). By pressing multi-colored masa (corn dough), the tortilla press engage nepantla aesthetics. When placed on the comal (tortilla pan) to cook, marcas quemaduras (burn marks) permeate the tortilla landscape. The burn marks become sites of healing and transformation rather than as accidents or wounds. Through acts of nepantlando, these multi-colored tortillas become grounds from which to know, make, and teach.