MexiCali Biennial

10/16/2026

09/23/2026

PARA|archives: From the Archive

PEOPLE: Carmina Escobar
EVENT: RE+actions: Performing the Archive
VENUE: MXCL BNL LAB
LOCATION: Whittier, CA
DATE: June 6, 2026
PHOTOGRAPHER: Ed Gomez
IMAGE SOURCE: MexiCali Biennial Archive

09/03/2026

We’re looking forward to the first in a series of conversations around PARA/normal Borders!

This coming Wednesday, September 9, join us at Whittier College for a conversation with MacArthur Fellows Josh Kun and Alex Rivera. Together, they will share their work and discuss how artistic and scholarly practices can connect communities, recover overlooked histories, and imagine new futures.

Wednesday, September 9
Whittier College | 5:00 p.m.
Free and open to the public. RSVP in bio.

07/21/2026

puƎ ǝɥ⊥

07/16/2026

Over the past two years, the MXCL BNL LAB has hosted exhibitions, workshops, talks, performances, and community events in Uptown Whittier. Through this work, we've seen the community's enthusiasm for arts and culture and believe Whittier could benefit from a dedicated Center for the Arts.

While this is not a City initiative, the MexiCali Biennial is gathering feedback to better understand whether residents share this vision.

If you live, work, study, or spend time in Whittier, we'd love to hear from you. Please complete our survey and share your thoughts.

📝 Take the survey also linked in bio. https://forms.gle/q6tgcV7CHyBvga4k7

Please share.

07/16/2026

The PARA/normal Borders Conversation Series brings together six MacArthur Fellows for three public conversations exploring the borderlands through music, film, literature, Indigenous knowledge, philosophy, and critical scholarship.

📍 September 9
Josh Kun + Alex Rivera
Whittier College

📍 October 15
Sky Hopinka + Maggie Nelson
UC San Diego

📍 January 13
Cristina Rivera Garza + Fred Moten
UC San Diego

Join us as we rethink the borders as cultural, historical, technological, and haunted spaces that continue to shape how we understand ourselves and one another.

🎟 All events are free and open to the public. Visit MexiCaliBiennial.org to learn more.

06/20/2026

A big welcome to our newest intern Claudia "Claud" Steen. Over the summer, Claud will be assisting in hands-on projects, such as art handling while deinstalling the last exhibition at MXCL BNL LAB while also assisting in cataloguing and organizing the Biennial archive. They are currently working on a special proposal for a PARA/normal Borders project - perhaps a Whittier College campus haunted tour is in our future?

Claud is working towards their major in Creative Business and Applied Media Arts and a minor in Global Languages at Whittier College. Whittier College

06/10/2026

06/02/2026

Join us for RE+actions: Performing the Archive, an afternoon of performances that revisit key moments from past MexiCali Biennial programs. Events will take place at MXCL BNL LAB (MexiCali Biennial Lab) at 6545 Greenleaf, Whittier

Schedule of events:

3:00 p.m. Rebeca Hernandez performs Façade, originally part of Cannibalism in the New World (2013) at Vincent Price Art Museum. .hernandez.73307

3:30 p.m. Carmina Escobar revisits Rituals of Propagation previously performed across the border fence between Mexicali and Calexico for Calafia: Manifesting the Terrestrial Paradise (2020).

4:00 Annabel Turrado reactivates Raspado (Abolish ICE), a durational performance previously performed at Parque Héroes de Chapultepec in Mexicali as part of Land of Milk & Honey (2023).

05/28/2026

RE+ACTIONS: Performing the Archive

An afternoon of performances featuring Carmina Escobar, Rebeca Hernandez, and Annabel Turrado. These invited artists will revisit/reinterpret activations that took place at the U.S.-Mexico border during previous MexiCali Biennial cycles.

MXCL BNL LAB | 6545 Greenleaf, Whittier | June 6 at 3 p.m.