Chuquimarca Art Library + Crystal Vance Guerra + Mariana Mejía (2025)
Image: (right) A portrait of Mariana Mejía, who wearing a navy top and a yellow skirt while looking straight at the camera. Photo by Hiram Tréjo. (middle) A portrait of Crystal Vance Guerra, who is wearing a black top and red pants while sitting on a bench at Tala Gallery. A stack of books from Chuquimarca’s collection sits in front of her. Photo by Kristie Kahns. (left) A portrait of John H. Guevara sitting in an all-purple space at Tala Gallery, which is where Chuquimarca’s Art Library is available to the public. Photo by Kristie Kahns.
ARCHIVE:
Chuquimarca Art Library
Chuquimarca is an art library participating in the making and exchanging of art knowledge and language by gathering art books and organizing cohort-led programs. The library values and prioritizes material and immaterial art resources related to diasporas, the Global South, and Indigenous perspectives.
Chuquimarca is organized by John H. Guevara, a Chicago curator and writer. They were recognized as one of Chicago’s Art Top 50 Visual Vanguards in 2022 by Newcity Magazine. They have participated in residencies at Chicago Artist Coalition, Independent Curators International, and No Lugar Arte Contemporaneo in Quito, Ecuador. Their writings have been published in Chicago’s Newcity Magazine and The Latinx Project’s Intervenxions. In 2019, they founded and currently direct the art library project Chuquimarca, in which they have programmed with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Depaul Art Museum, Mana Contemporary, and Hyde Park Art Center. They are the founder and director of Chuquimarca.
ARTIST:
Crystal Vance Guerra
Crystal Vance Guerra is a chicana poet, historian, and educator based in and between Chicago and Mexico City. Her art is latinamericanist at root, often spanglish in expression, and written to be read out loud. She is the founder of Chicago’s only poetry slam in Spanish, Slam Diáspora. Now in its third year, this slam brings together Latinx poets in the U.S. and poets across Latin America to foster unity between our poetic communities despite borders. Throughout her poetic journey she has participated in numerous poetry slams, festivals, and residencies on both sides of the Rio Bravo, while developing workshops focused on encouraging the exploration of sound, languages, and embodiment in poetry.
In addition to her poetic craft, Crystal has worked as a freelance journalist and researcher, with her work published in Yes! Magazine, The Guardian, Truth-Out, and AREA Chicago. She holds a B.A. in Africana Studies and Latin American and Caribbean Studies from Brown University and an M.A. in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
ARCHIVIST:
Mariana Mejía
Mariana Mejía, born in Mexico City, is a curator and arts administrator focused on cultural exchange across the U.S. and Latin America. With a background in both arts administration and international cultural policy, she brings a cross-disciplinary approach to her roles as curator, archivist, and arts administrator. She has worked in embassies, museums, universities, and community organizations across the U.S. and Latin America.
Her approach to archives includes teaching the studio-seminar Artist Archives and Legacies in the Historic Preservation Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where she engaged students with diverse archival collections as teaching resources. She also piloted Open Archive Sessions, a participatory model designed to expand accessibility to artists’ archives, presented at the Hyde Park Art Center and the Staple & Stitch Book Fair. Mariana holds an MA in Arts Administration and Policy from SAIC and a BA in International Relations from ITAM (Mexico City).