Minneapolis – Minnesota Writers Off the Page: Jessica Lopez Lyman

About this event

Join Minnesota Writers Off the Page for an evening with Jessica Lopez Lyman and her book Place-Keepers: Latina/x Art, Performance, and Organizing in the Twin Cities. As an author, artist, and professor, Jessica explores the powerful intersections of art, place, resistance, and social movements—and the Latina/x artists and organizers who have helped shape the cultural and political landscape of the Twin Cities. Join Jessica for an engaging conversation with Maria Cristina Tavera as they dig into the creative practices, performances, and acts of organizing that have left their mark—both literally and figuratively—on the Cities. Discover the stories behind the art and the people who have transformed the Twin Cities through creativity, community, and collective action. Following the discussion, audience members are invited to participate in a Q&A session and have further informal conversation with the featured speakers. Light refreshments will be provided, copies of Place-Keepers will be available for purchase, and the evening will finish with a book signing. Jessica Lopez Lyman, Ph.D., is an interdisciplinary performance artist, McKnight Land-Grant Professor, and Associate Professor of Chicano and Latino Studies at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of Place-Keepers: Latina/x Art, Performance, and Organizing in the Twin Cities (2025) and is currently writing a book on Operation Metro Surge. Her scholarship and creative writing have appeared in “Chicana/Latina Studies,” “American Studies,” “The Black Scholar,” and other publications. As a performance artist, her work includes the multimedia piece 141 Mednik Avenue, created as a 2017 Naked Stages Fellow at Pillsbury House Theatre, which explores memory, displacement, and longing through the story of her grandfather. She has performed at venues including First Avenue, Intermedia Arts, and Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana (MACLA), and is the creator of La Luchadora, a mobile screen-print cart…

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