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Ruben Castillo

@rubenbcastillo.bsky.social
284 followers 217 following 46 posts

NY-based artist & educator

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Reposted by Ruben Castillo
Aruna D’Souza @arunadsouza.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
One of the ideas in my book “Imperfect Solidarities” is that you can align with people momentarily and provisionally to move things forward—to be in solidarity does not have to mean agreeing with every single thing they’ve said and done ever. Solidarity is not an identification, it’s a strategy.
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adrienne maree brown @adriennemareebrown.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
“The most important thing is he changes the way his teammates think about their own play,” Lebron James on Nikola Jokic. “When you’re able to inspire your teammates to play at a level that sometimes they don’t even feel like they can play at, that’s a true testament of a great one.”
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Timothy Burke @bubbaprog.xyz · 27/02/2025
"daddy, what did you do in the war" son, i archived all 6,793 videos from the Kennedy Center before they disappeared from the internet we all did our part
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fío avocado (they/them) @fioavocado.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
queer time, CMYK screenprint on cotton hanky. Made for the Salt and Blood of Hidden Kinship print exchange.
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Jacquelyn Gill @jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
Hey, artists, in case you were wondering if your work matters: I'm a scientist working on climate change and biodiversity, and I would not be who I am today without The Lorax, The Secret of NIMH, Watership Down, The Last Unicorn, and The X-Files. I know I'm not alone. Thank you for all you do.
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
Remembering that fatigue and hopelessness is their goal and I’m too stubborn to let them win. Individualism isn’t the way, in the sense that you’re the one with the answers. You can only control what is immediately around you. Trying to give students the space to carry on safely is enough.
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
I think I’m always like, who wore it better? The small ad or the billboard? Like the setting in the Substance, that billboard plays such an omnipresent force. I would look at what their foundation is. And yes. Teaching is hard and keeps getting harder.
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
I think I just bully them into explaining it to me and I’m maybe a little conceptually relentless? But I also do think it has a lot to do with conversations of “safe” “comfort” and the means with which students can take “risks,” especially if economics is playing a factor
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
I think a lot about when I was in school, I had one professor, our first project was 10 two layer prints in some absurd amount of time, maybe 1-1.5 weeks? It was like you had no time to think and the point was: get to work.
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
I force them to work large. They have no choice. For my first project in print 1, after they knock out 4-5 monotypes on the first week, the start work on a large monotype, full sheet. I make sure they have the means and tell them they can make a small image, but it must use the full sheet.
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
It’s amazing!! The exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum was so immense and rich with materials (a huge zine and publication exhibition). Tons of amazing documents. Sadly the catalogue is already out of print and I’m lucky that the copy we have is a students.
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
She’s my hero. Essential for any class working with archive-based practices.
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
And 5.) “Gesture, Ephemera, and Feeling” by Jose Esteban Munoz from Cruising Utopia
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
For reading assignments: 1.) Bad Archives by @soulellis.bsky.social and “Archives Behaving Badly” by Leah DeVun & Michael Jay McClure 2.) “Emotional Rescue” by Heather Love (from Feeling Backward) 3.) Intro from “Queer Ecologies” by Timothy Morten 4.) “Publics and Counterpublics by Michael Warner
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
I’ve been leaving out a mini library from my collection for my Queer Archives/Queer Ephemera class. Here are some fun selections I’ve been adding.
Top (left to right): Strange Mutualisms by Vernal Pools Press, Exuberant Possibilities by Queer Ecology Hanky Project; Copy Machine Manifesto. Bottom (left to right): Queer X Design by Andy Campbell; Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects; The Unruly Archive by Stephanie Syjuco; Biological Exuberance by Bruce Bagemihl
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
Thinking about this in contrast to, perhaps, some of my pessimism over the fascist policies hitting higher ed. I teach Emergent Strategy in my studio classes (actually, discussing tomorrow) and it’s this exact sentiment of care and solidarity that I am leaning on. People save people.
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
Applications that ask you to type your CV/resumé are forever the bane of my existence.
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
🥳 💯
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
There’s a lot of optimism here that I appreciate, but I think since that time the institution has become exceptionally well-equipped to handle disruption. Columbia University, along with several other public unis, are stealthily retaliating. I support all forms of disruption, but it’s getting harder
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
Curiously, I know from a colleague in Philly that once a lawsuit is involved, every accommodation will suddenly become available.
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
This feels like it happens all the time in higher ed. It’s so frustrating. I’ve resorted to finding alternative support for my students. I always remind them that the institution looks out for itself first. Definitely a reflection of the outside world.
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 16/02/2025
In all honesty, I don’t know how we navigate all of this anti-DEI policy in a higher ed setting. I’ve never felt institutions to be the place where one can most effectively challenge structural oppression within the world. It’s scary times, and I hope we can just stick together and help each other.
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Paul Soulellis @soulellis.com · 16/02/2025
The Dear Colleague letter that went out on Friday, banning *all* DEI activity at schools (who received this, college presidents and public school superintendents?) www.ed.gov/media/docume...
ed.gov
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Paul Soulellis @soulellis.com · 14/02/2025
erasure is happening all the time. I’m thinking about this project I did in 2018 that recorded all of the emails that went into the deletion of climate change-related terms on the EPA website, also the result of an EO. A 734-page book of all of the emails leading up to the purge
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
I would love to know any tips and tricks you gain! Recently hit some weird snafus and am wondering if it was the cheap Art Alternatives brand watercolors or something else (basically the pigment flaked off the gummed matte duralar)
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Emmett Merrill @stagprint.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
Totally stunning. Can’t wait to see what the color component brings!
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Jairo I. Fúnez-Flores @insurgentthought.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
The only thing I know about the Super Bowl is this.
Protestor holding up a Palestinian flags. Reads “Sudan and Gaza”
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Mary Claire Becker @maryclairebecker.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
hyperallergic.com/988542/nea-t...
hyperallergic.com
NEA Throws Out Grant Program for Underserved Communities
The NEA announced that it is scrapping its Challenge America grants and focusing on projects related to the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
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Paul Soulellis @soulellis.com · 08/02/2025
New compliance doc for NEA recipients www.arts.gov/grants/legal...
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
Bluesky is too polite. Everything here is so pure.
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Feels like printing Nothing At All!
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Amazing!!
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Skipped on ice today, cartoonish fall, and now both wrists sprained. Let’s see how this portfolio exchange gets done 😅
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
One thing I do is share the context and then breakdown what I want them to get, visually, from the example so they can use that strategy on their own.
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
That’s interesting. Something I’ve learned from my students is that they quietly accept the expectation, and try to meet it, but then don’t tell me that they’ve been confused or overwhelmed all along. Which, I guess was my experience too? How are you going to respond to this?
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Jenie Gao @jeniegao.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
Starting a list for #printmaking professors, instructors, and educators. 🥧 I need your help building this list! Comment if you'd like to be added to the list and tag other print educators you know. 🙂 🧵 Follow the feed for print-related content by the people on this list. #printsky
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
I would love to be added!
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Paul Soulellis @soulellis.com · 04/02/2025
For anyone who was interested in this post—I’ve written a longer piece about the history of the rainbow flag (and other things) here: open.substack.com/pub/soulelli...
open.substack.com
Flagging*
Making legible with “world-words”
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
I would love to!!
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
Also, what a beautiful shop!!
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
I don’t but count me in!!!
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Not going to SGCI Puerto Rico, but color proofing prints for the Salt & Blood portfolio organized by Ron Abrams and @vernalpool.bsky.social Now to work on the etching component
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Stunning
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Mitch Goldstein @mgoldst.com · 03/02/2025
a helpful diagram. #art #design
a venn diagram: one cirsl says "f*ck around" , the other says "find out", and the intersectuon says "creative practice."
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🏳️‍⚧️ Aileron | Bad Hands Sam 🏳️‍⚧️ @aileronbhs.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
There was an exhibition on campus that made me cry today. It was a showcase of 50 years worth of news clippings of Seattle Gay News. Left a QR code for visibility. It's extremely important rn to see how far we've come, what battles we've won and lost over the years, also some banger pics too lmao
Gallery space in western Washington's Viking Union Gallery showing off several news clippings of Seattle Gay News and the process talking about how this information was archived.QR code to scan the digital archive of Seattle Gay News"GREAT SEX! DONT LET AIDS STOP IT." Newspaper heading with two men putting their clothes back on. The bottom says "Great Sex is healing sex!"

The side graphics detailing sexual activities have the following info alongside em: "Don't let him come in your ass Don't come in his."
"Don't come in his mouth. Don't let him come in yours." 
"Don't rim." It was at this point I lost it, this shit is so funny. 
"Jacking off is hot and safe." 
"Affection is our best protection."

As humorous as these slogans are, this was printed at the height of the AIDS epidemic that killed 39 million people and over 500,000 in the US during this time. It was easily spread through anal sex and was especially deadly and rapidly spread among gay men during the 80s. To put this in perspective, just over 7 million people have died to COVID since 2020. 


More Seattle clippings with the headline "AIDS virus isolated"
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
An excellent choice
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
I think it’s important to be on both platforms and give opportunity to both apps. If all creatives leave Meta, it’ll become a cesspool of a fascist echo chamber. It’s what fascism needs: us divided.
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Ruben Castillo @rubenbcastillo.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
Yesterday I listened to Ray of Light by Madonna, LANA by SZA, and then I was listening to a new track from this new Q Lazarus compilation that’s going to be really exciting when it comes out. The new FKA twigs album is great (hence why I went back to Ray of Light) and then Nilüfer Yanya
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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
The Internet Archive has to date downloaded 500 terabytes of US government websites, which it crawls at the end of every presidential term. The whole archive is fully searchable. This effort's housed by a donation-funded nonprofit, not a branch of the US government. blog.archive.org/2024/05/08/e...
blog.archive.org
End of Term Web Archive – Preserving the Transition of a Nation | Internet Archive Blogs
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