This was produced for the print festival Grabadolandia for a portfolio organized by Instituto Grafico de Chicago with Marimacha Monarca Press in 2019. The theme of the portfolio exchange was This Bridge Called My Back.
I encountered Salima Rivera's poetry for the first time in 2018 in a video from 1979 made by the feminist videographer Eleanor Boyer. Boyer shot a short documentary about a street festival hosted by Mujeres Latinas en Accion, the legendary anti-domestic violence and sex education organization. The organization and festival was home-grown in Pilsen, where Rivera also lived. You can view the documentary here. Salima appears in three clips, and in one, she reads the poem featured in this print. One of the festival organizers who worked at MLEA was Diana Solis, who is a poet and a photographer, and this drawing of Salima is based on one of Diana's photographs. You can read her bio here.
