Assistant professor of art + design José Menéndez’s research project, Gráfica Latina, is part of two new exhibits. The first exhibit is on display at the WaterFire Arts Center Gallery in Providence, RI. The exhibit, “Graphic Voices of Latin America,” is a two-part exhibit, with Gráfica Latina’s work on display for the first part of the exhibit, running until March 23, 2025.

“The exhibition by Gráfica Latina & La Linterna is an examination of the power of graphic design and art to motivate and compel precisely such action towards transforming our world. With political posters from 16 countries across South and Central America, the exhibition shares a vibrant range of influences and approaches while capturing the exciting vitality and struggle of recent history,” Barnaby Evans, Artistic Director and CEO of WaterFire Providence, explained in a press release for the exhibit.

By focusing on the graphic elements of posters, including “a diversity of printing techniques, vernacular languages, methods of representation (illustration, typography/calligraphy/lettering, and color), and messaging ranging from cultural to political, and environmental,” the exhibit aims to explore the cultural and political contexts in which they were created.

To learn more about the exhibit, you can visit the WaterFire Arts Center Gallery site.

Gráfica Latina’s work will also be on display in the Ford Foundation Gallery in New York City starting March 4 as part of the exhibit “Reverberations: Lineages in Design History.” This exhibit centers the design work of Indigenous, Black and People of Color creators; by “amplifying these many stories, Reverberations counters the narrative of design tradition as a single dominant line and seeks to undo erasures by reconnecting and rippling out to those who have been silenced, misrepresented, and miscategorized,” the curators Brian Johnson and Silas Munro explained.

The exhibit transformed the gallery space into an educational hub, giving visitors the opportunity to enter “into a thematically organized experience tracing reverberations in design over the centuries, landscapes, and traditions they flow out of and into.” The designs on display reach across mediums, including graphic languages, textiles, and posters that spur action. Jose Menéndez and Tatiana Gomez, of Gráfica Latina, join over 50 other artists on display for this exhibition.

Reverberations: Lineages in Design History runs through May 3, 2025. For more information about the exhibit, visit their website.