Sandy Rodriguez: Tierra Insurgente

Chicana artist Sandy Rodriguez creates paintings and maps on handmade amate bark paper that challenge colonial cartography and position the earth as a witness to resistance and survival.

Why go

Rodriguez grounds her work in Indigenous Mesoamerican traditions of mapping and storytelling, creating a dialogue between her contemporary paintings—referencing Black Lives Matter, migrant detention, and wildfires—and the Hispanic Society's collection of colonial-era maps and Indigenous manuscripts. The exhibition traces how the logics of conquest

What to expect

Works on handmade amate bark paper with natural pigment, including paintings, codices, and maps displayed alongside colonial-era cartography, botanical books, and Indigenous manuscripts from the museum's collection. The exhibition explores how protest becomes memory and movement becomes a language of refusal.

Things to know

• Artist is Los Angeles-based Chicana artist working with Indigenous Mesoamerican traditions
• Exhibition runs April 9 through July 5, 2026
• Works reference pandemic-era grief, Black Lives Matter, migrant detention centers, and California wildfires
• Created on handmade amate bark paper with natural pigment
• Exhibition title *Tierra Insurgente* positions land as an active force in rebellion
• Works placed in dialogue with colonial-era cartography and Indigenous manuscripts from the Hispanic Society's collection