Raquel Gutiérrez | A Tailgating Duet: On Infrastructural Intimacies

Raquel Gutiérrez, 2025. Photo: Jason Williams Add to calendar Google Calendar iCalendar Outlook 365 Outlook Live About Premiering new work inspired by the exhibition Mario Ayala: Seven Vans and Southwest car culture, Raquel Gutiérrez offers a creative inquiry into the modern and contemporary imaginaries of ruins in and of the Southwest United States and how we arrive at them. Why is the parking lot the new paved paradise for third-space lovers? How does our daily rage simmer in the endless torrent of freeway traffic? In cultural discourse, as materials, they are often associated with quaint tourist attractions or upcycled rasquache soon-to-be chic. As metaphor and process, however, they are timelier than ever before as they speak to the decay of the American dream and other myths associated with progress narratives of Western expansion and Manifest Destiny. Join Gutiérrez as they consider the ways in which representations of the built environment and infrastructure underscore social space, mobility, and relationality and how ruins pinpoint time and space in one historical pulse.This event is free to attend. Seating will be limited. RSVP is recommended.RSVPs will open for members March 2-8. RSVPs will open to the public on March 9, 2026. RSVP Open Studio | Text Layered Bookmarks at Dreamers Books + Culture Join Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) on Saturday, April 4, 2026, from 1-4PM at Dreamers Books + Culture for a hands-on art-making activity to create a text-layered laminated bookmark collage inspired by CAMH exhibition Mario Ayala: Seven Vans. Explore the selection of Latiné and Latin American books, authors, and culture specially curated by Dreamers’ owner, Elizabeth Farfán-Santos, Ph.D., and enjoy a first access chance to pre-purchase and secure one of Raquel Gutiérrez’s books in time for the Performance Lecture. About Raquel Gutiérrez Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Raquel Gutiérrez is a critic, essayist, poet, performer, and educator. Gutiérrez’s first book Brown Neon (Coffee House Press) was named as one of the best books of 2022 by The New Yorker and listed in The Best Art Books of 2022 by Hyperallergic. Brown Neon was a 2023 Finalist for the Lambda Literary Prize for Best Lesbian Biography/Memoir, a 2023 Finalist for the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses’ Firework Award in Creative Nonfiction and a Recipient of The Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction. Their work has been supported by a 2025 United States Artist Fellowship and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Fellowship in Poetry. Their first poetry collection, Southwest Reconstruction, was published in late 2025 on Noemi Press. Gutiérrez has lived on unceded lands of the Tohono O’odham and Pascua Yaqui people since 2016. About Dreamers Books + Culture Dreamers Books + Culture is a Latina-owned curated bookstore in Houston specializing in Latiné & Latin American books, authors, and culture. Related Eve...