Houston’s a series of grids. What makes H-Town different is its infamous lack of governance regarding land use. Thus, squares on these urban grids have been conduits for the Houstonian imagination. This project explores grids through artwork that subverts its utilitarianism by repurposing them to center non-white experiences. The Houston Artist Speaks Through Grids is an online exhibition featuring visual works, interviews, writing, resources, etc. all exploring life within grids as a person of color.
Reyes Ramirez is a Houstonian, writer, educator, curator, and organizer of Mexican and Salvadoran descent. Reyes won the 2019 YES Contemporary Art Writer’s Grant, 2017 Blue Mesa Review Nonfiction Contest, 2014 riverSedge Poetry Prize and has poems, stories, essays, and reviews in: Indiana Review, Cosmonauts Avenue, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, The Latinx Archive, december magazine, Arteinformado, Texas Review, TRACK//FOUR, Houston Noir, Gulf Coast Journal, The Acentos Review, Cimarron Review, and elsewhere. He is a 2020 CantoMundo Fellow, 2022 Crosstown Arts Writer in Residence, and has been awarded grants from the Houston Arts Alliance, Poets & Writers, and Warhol Foundation’s Idea Fund.