Art & Activism

Marcos Dimas Interview

In this oral history interview independent scholar Tomás Ybarra-Frausto talks with artist, filmmaker, and co-founder of El Taller Boricua, Marcos Dimas. El Taller Boricua/The Puerto Rican Workshop was founded in 1970 and is an artist-run nonprofit art gallery and multidisciplinary cultural space in New York's East Harlem. Conducted June 24, 2011.

Marcos Dimas is one of the founders of the Taller Boricua who organized to save an old school in East Harlem. The Julia Burgos Center has been home for decades of exhibitions, celebrations, discussions, concerts, etc. Recently the organization that created this important cultural home have lost their lease to the processes of gentrification and New York City has created a "consortium" to replace this grassroots pioneering group. Dimas tells about the founding of the center and the recent take-over.