Artist and activist Nansi Guevara on how art can help protect the Rio Grande Delta from colonial encroachment in Brownsville, Texas.
In Brownsville, Texas, just down the road from the newly incorporated SpaceX town of Starbase, artist Nansi Guevara and her collaborators are using every tool at their disposal to protect the Rio Grande Delta from colonial encroachment and environmental damage. Incorporating bilingual narrative change workshops, film screenings, social media campaigns, art exhibitions, and more, Guevara’s polyphonous multi-year project, Nuestra Delta Mágica counters claims that “there’s nothing” in South Texas. Shining a spotlight on the vibrant cultural and ecological life put at risk by the space industry, Guevara’s work illustrates everything we stand to lose at the crossroads of the Rio Grande Delta and the cosmos.
So Nansi, what are your hot takes on space travel?
Ha! Hot takes… I mean, sometimes people say, “You’re against space travel,” but I just have a critical view. Space exploration has been so motivated by imperialism, and now by billionaire oligarchs, I would just like to see it motivated by love of the Earth.
It sounds like that benevolent space race isn’t what’s happening in your community.
No. SpaceX sees the Rio Grande Delta as this vacant place where explosions can happen. Local politicians bought the narrative that SpaceX put Brownsville on the map. It’s like that idea of discovering the Americas. But no, there were people and ecosystems here before, ones you’re now destroying.
Reading about SpaceX, I see the word “colonization” come up a lot in the context of establishing life on Mars. What does that word mean to you, as a resident of the place where SpaceX is trying to build that reality?
SpaceX has its own city now and its employees were the only ones that got to vote for it, no one in Brownsville. It has private security, and now we don’t have the right to freely visit the beach or the river delta. It’s more of a factory than a city. There’s no public. Private cities should not exist. Private cities created by billionaire, fascist oligarchs should not exist. It’s colonization.
A lot of Nuestra Delta Mágica’s imagery shows these stark contrasts between rockets and rivers, magic and science, even SpaceX’s color palette and the community aesthetics. Are those oppositions obvious on the ground?
For me, they’re very in my face. Brownsville is very Mexican, so storefronts are painted bright colors, but I’m seeing more things painted white, black, or gray. Restaurants have space-themed menus, business names include “space,” murals are of astronauts. Space stuff is shoved down our throats and it brainwashes people. I see people wearing SpaceX t-shirts and buying Teslas or Cybertrucks. It’s become kind of an identity, but it’s not what defines us as a community. What defines us is preserving our culture and histories as people who worked and lived with the land.
As a public artist and activist, what does the path forward look like to you?
I see a future where we design our built environment in relation to the river. There’s no border wall and our movements and economies are based on sustaining our environment. We’re able to thrive doing things that bring us joy and working on things that we’re passionate about. Our young people are not tracked into the military, ICE, or border patrol. We get to enjoy the bodies of water that sustain us. Everybody has access to dignified housing and food, clean water and air. I think it’s important for us all to see that future, because the path we’re on now leads to destruction.
I hope that people look at Brownsville as an example of what billionaires envision for the future, the dystopia they’re forcing us into. I’ve seen what they’re building and it’s horrific. People need to follow and care about what’s happening in Brownsville, on the border, in South Texas. We’re on the front lines, but this isn’t a local issue. It’s a global fight.
