Delilah Gabrielle Anaya
Nogales/Migration Patterns

"...I was walking in the city when I was sad, but walking in the city made it worse. I need nature. So I started thinking about what was Chicago like before colonization, and there's a lot of similarities to the Rio Grande river. I did research on maps of Chicago and the plants, found out that nopales (cactus) are native to Chicago but they've dissipated over time because of colonization....main streets, for example Clark St., was actually an indigenous route taken by indigenous people.

...all my work has always surrounded immigration and migration, and walking and maps are very much about this. I started thinking how can you decolonize map and I don't think it's possible because that's using what colonizers used to map out indigenous tribes; I came across an actual map of this for Chicago. All of this research got me to this work...taking the viewer out of their element for a moment to watch a video of my stepson in the Rio Grande once they scan the QR code. I'll be placing this {nopales] sticker on the platforms but also at street level. Now that it's cold and grey, people will be drawn to a green nopales."