By the People for the People.
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La Tiny Art Gallery Presents: PANCA
If you’ve seen the giant, dripping strawberry ice cream cone surrounded by red hearts driving into Barrio Logan, then you’re familiar with the work of PANCA.
Image from Street Art Cities
Libélula’s La Tiny Art Gallery recently installed its latest exhibition by local artist Panca. Paola Villaseñor, or Panca, is a first generation border-crossing painter, muralist, street artist, and illustrator working and creating in San Diego and Tijuana. Her work centers the transmutation of the pain and the grotesque of the feminist human experience into fun, surreal images of neons and pastels, monstrous figures, and distorted shapes. Panca has been featured in the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, the San Diego Art Institute, the Bread and Salt Gallery, the Chicano Park Museum, and your local streets and spaces from Barrio Logan to el Ciudad de México. You can find their latest interactive exhibit, El Más Allá, at the New Children’s Museum in downtown San Diego and, of course, in Libélula Books and Co.’s La Tiny Art Gallery. You can also find a signed copy of her book with Bread and Salt Gallery.
Libélula Celebrates the 54th Chicano Park Day
The 54th Annual Chicano Park Day Commemoration was celebrated on Saturday, April 20th in Barrio Logan, taking over Logan Avenue for a block party of cruising lowriders, DJs bumping corridos and slow jams, incredible food and agua fresca, and local vendors slinging their homemade goods and Chicanx merch.
This year’s theme was “Bringing Back the True Spirit and Energy of the Chicano Park Takeover,” and the event’s organizers delivered. Guest speakers, performers, dancers, and artists came together to uplift and re-energize community members with a sense of justice and collaboration. Libélula showed their support by highlighting local authors and poets, and books that centered Chicanx spirit and individuality. Thank you to the community of Barrio Logan for their inclusion as a brown queer space on the block, and to our community members for supporting us through their readership. We can’t wait until you’re back to hang out on the couch, throw on a VHS tape with Billi and Moo, and curl up with one of our books.
Want to know what readers were picking up to read on Chicano Park Day? Find a curated list by Dani on our bookshop.org page!
San Diego Lowriders: A History of Cars and Cruising by Rigo Reyes and Alberto L. Pulido
Red Tarot by Christopher Marmolejo
Chicano Bakes by Esteban Castillo
Lowriders in Space by Cathy Camper
Chicano Frankenstein by Daniel A. Olivas
Jefa in Training by Ashley K. Stoyanov Ojeda
Si Se Puede: The Latino Heroes Who Changed the United States by Julio Anta, illustrated by Yasmín Flores Montañez
Lowriting: Shots, Rides & Stories from the Chicano Soul by Santino J Rivera, photographs by Art Meza
Border Citizen by Ralph Inzunza
Upcoming Events
SOULKISS THEATER PRESENTS: NIGHT OF NEW PLAYS
Wednesday, May 1st, 2024
6:30PM
Hosted by Miki Vale, join us for a night of four ten-minute play readings and conversations with the new playwrights. Hear the latest from Brittany Allen, Ahliyah S. Chambers, Casj Young, and Paola “Lola” Pujols. Described as a night for Black queer womxn to claim space, you don’t want to miss it.
BOOK CLUB: NEVER WHISTLE AT NIGHT
Wednesday, May 8th, 2024
6:30PM to 8:00PM
May’s book club pick is Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.! Join us for an evening of shared thoughts and spooky whispers. You can find a copy of Never Whistle at Night in store. A copy of the book is not required to join.
PEEL LIT READING
BARRIO ART CRAWL
Everything in the shop is for sale (except the cats!). Find your next favorite book, zine, art piece, or fun trinket during your first stop of the San Diego Book Crawl.
Miss out on our last post? Click here for last month's scoop!
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Thanks for reading,
dani