Symposium Spotlight: Brenda Vega

Interviewed on February 19, 2026.

Who are you and where are you located?
Brenda Vega, located in Richardson, TX

What inspires your work?
My work is inspired by the experience of living in-between — between languages, between territories, between analog and digital worlds, between visibility and disappearance.

As a Latina migrant scholar and performance artist, I am deeply moved by the ways bodies carry memory, migration, pain, resilience, and technology simultaneously. I am inspired by the body not as a stable identity, but as something multiplicitous — scarred, mediated, and constantly negotiating presence.

Tell us a little more about your work for the symposium?
My presentation introduces the concept of the Scarring Body, a framework I develop to analyze Latinx/Chicanx performance art from the 1970s to the present. Rather than treating pain, marginalization, or visibility as purely symbolic, I examine how the body becomes a material site where history, migration, gender, race, and technology leave traces.

Drawing from phenomenology, critical feminist theory, and decolonial thought, I argue that the scar is not only a mark of injury but also a site of endurance and reconfiguration. In works by artists such as Ana Mendieta, Laura Aguilar, and contemporary performance practitioners, the body does not disappear under violence or erasure; instead, it insists on presence.

Do you have any current projects that you're working on that you would like to share?
I am currently working on an installation titled One and the Other (2025). In this project, I return to analogue and alternative photographic processes, creating large-scale cyanotypes on fabric. The work measures 11 feet by 30 inches and incorporates tulle and pins, allowing the material to remain delicate, suspended, and slightly unstable.

Through self-representation, I explore migration, identity, and the shifting boundary between self and “other.” As a Latinx woman from the Andes living in the United States, I reflect on vulnerability, displacement, and belonging. In this installation, my body becomes both subject and mirror — present, multiplied, and partially diffused through fabric.

What brought you to the New Media Caucus?
I was encouraged to apply by my professors at UT Dallas, who recognized that both my work and the work of my peers strongly align with the conversations fostered by the New Media Caucus.

Where can we follow your work?
https://brendavega.com