Inside the Queer/Cuir + Trans Dominican Art Zine

Hi Friends,

One of the greatest joys of this work is the people it brings into my life! Today, I am so excited to introduce you all to two incredible collaborators, artist Índigo Regalado Mota and community organizer oliver vásquez de la cruz, whose vision, creativity, and curation helped bring the Queer/Cuir and Trans Dominican Art Zine Project to life:

As someone deeply invested in preserving and celebrating queer history, I believe that enduring archives are built through the relationships we cultivate, the stories we share, and the histories we create together. This project embodies that belief. It creates space for queer/cuir and trans Dominican artists to see themselves reflected, while documenting this vibrant creative community on its own terms.

In this special Q&A, Índigo and oliver share the inspiration behind the project, the challenges and joys of building it, and what they hope it will mean for queer Dominican, both now and in the future.

I hope you enjoy getting to know them and their work as much as I have!

In Community Always,

Queer Archivist

Índigo Regalado Mota (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 1999) is a multidisciplinary artist working with techniques such as painting, illustration, and printmaking. They completed their studies at La Escuela de Diseño Chavón and École Pivaut.

Over the years, their art has taken many different forms, with a notable focus on oneiric and colorful universes, which they use to explore sensitive themes deeply connected to their identities. They often work with mixed techniques, including gouache, watercolor, ink, and colored pencils on paper. Their work addresses issues of race, gender and sexual identity, and culture.

They have been part of several group exhibitions, including Young Lesbians, On Selfhood (2024) at The Center in New York, USA, Flora Verba: Le Langage Secret des Fleurs (2025) at Artistik Rezo Gallery in Paris, France, and Power in Numbers (2025) at Gallery Nucleus, California, USA.

Website: https://www.iregaladomota.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/i.regaladomota/

Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/iregaladomota

oliver vásquez de la cruz

oliver is a queer/cuir creator and the visionary mind behind do’pájaro/cuirfest, initiatives dedicated to amplifying the identities and lived experiences of lgbtq+ individuals. through their work, oliver diligently educates their community on the nuances of the queer/trans spectrum through both digital and in-person platforms, fostering inclusive environments within the dominican republic and its (trans)national communities.

oliver has received fellowships and academic support from the carolina foundation (fundación carolina), the u.s. department of state (2023), the mellon foundation, and the cuny dominican studies institute.

to learn more about oliver vásquez de la cruz’s work and their community projects, you can visit the following link:

https://linktr.ee/dopajaro

Queer Archivist: What was the process like in the inception of this project? What motivated both of you to embark on this curatorial work together?

Indigo Regalado: The project really began when oliver and I met on DR in 2024. Then she visited me in Paris in January 2025, because we talked before about doing a collaboration together. It was there that the project began taking form. We talked about doing an editorial project; at first, it was oriented around traditional publishing, but after discussing the implications of traditional editorial publishing, we decided the best route was making a zine.

We wanted to talk about Dominican culture and queerness, from the beginning, but we didn’t know what form it would take. Oliver recontacted me last September and from there the project began taking form as we know it now.

From the beginning, it was important for us to do a project that is for the community, by the community, that would be able to reflect the diversity of Dominican Queer/Cuir and Trans art. Later, I proposed to organize the project around the theme Identity, because it’s a theme that is very present in my work and very close to my heart, and now, here we are.

oliver chrysalis vásquez de la cruz: before i delve into the roots of this project, i must acknowledge the witnesses to my writing: the chinese hibiscus, the arrowleaf elephants, and the guanacaste. i name these plants specifically, for they are my companions here in santo domingo, the capital of the dominican republic. they provide the serene, symbiotic sanctuary necessary to translate my thoughts into a language that, while not the native tongue of my heartsoul, strives to capture our essence.

as dissident identities are scrutinized and displaced globally, a modern extension of the marginalization of indigenous cosmovisions, i felt a calling as a community organizer and creator. i wanted to cultivate a garden of experiences for present and future generations to wander through. my motivation was to offer an archive of radical hope: a testament that we were here, mobilizing, existing in joy, and constructing our own identities while moving in rhythm with our communities. returning to my home soil, a land deeply scarred by colonial power, i find myself held by compassion. i hope this project serves as a translation of that holding.

It is important to highlight that this work began to breathe during my CUNY DSI fellowship in new york city, a place that granted me the safety and serenity for my nervous system to settle and begin seeding. situating this incubation is vital, as the specific resources the city provided me - time, quality of life, and healthy spaces - act as the soil that allows a project (like this one) to bloom. the city is woven into this conceptualization through every face i encountered and all the nature that surrounds, and resides within me. i am grateful that the vibrant energy of new york was involved in this co-creation, serving as a sanctuary where these ideas could first take root.

Queer Archivist: How did your goals around this project shift as you began building it out in collaboration with the other artists and thinkers involved?

Indigo: I think it began from the moment we announced the open call. When we began the selection process I had a question in mind, that was “How all these pieces connect to each other and what is the overall narrative? What story can we tell?”. I really think this was the element that shaped the final result of the zine. That’s the reason the zine was divided into 4 sections: The Beginning of the Self; The Sorrow, The Emotions; The Self, The Culture; Our Love, Our Community.

It was really cool to organize the pieces and see how they respond to each other, almost as if they were talking to each other and to us. I think that was the best part, that the pieces became their own thing and evolved after leaving our hands (oliver’s, mine, and that of the artist that created them).

Queer Archivist: As you worked on building and then sharing the zine, what have you come to understand differently about queer Dominican life today?

Indigo: I remember that after the zine was launched, this gay Dominican creator, @Jotadejeremy, did a video about the zine on TikTok and he said something that really stuck to me. He said that we (the queer and trans Dominican community) believe we don’t have a shared identity, but that the zine proved it to be otherwise. I think a lot about it because for years I’ve had the same question, and I think it made me understand that yes we have a shared identity, that is expressed through small acts of defiance to the norm in our everyday lives and through the art that we create. And I love that because it reminds me we’re being cimarrones (maroons) by just existing and living a happy and fulfilling life.

Queer Archivist: What does it mean to build an archive through a collaborative zine project like this? What do you hope is preserved, and what do you hope remains intentionally ephemeral?

oliver: i hope to preserve the truth of how expansive and ever-transforming our identities truly are. this zine is a landscape of diverse backgrounds, neurodiversity, and bodyminds. i hope this complexity remains fluid and is never fixated into a rigid, monolithic logic. just as nature never repeats a sunset exactly, i believe each reader will harvest something unique to them, a resonance, a color, or a specific frame of a picture that speaks to their own journey.

what i hope remains ephemeral is the language itself. as critical thinkers and feeling beings, we are constantly subverting the old to find words that sit closer to our bodyminds. in ten years, the terms we use today may be outdated, and i welcome that. i hope the zine remains as a seed, an artifact of how we once defied what existed to create a space authentic to our being, so that others may continue to grow radical imaginaries from it.

Queer Archivist: What do you both hope this project makes possible for queer and trans Dominicans on the island and across the diaspora?

oliver: my greatest wish is for queer and trans dominicans, both on the island and across the diaspora, to feel the radical hope that co-creating this with indigo has given me. i hope they can immerse themselves in this utopia and remember that they are valid, that our ancestry is as expansive as the mycelium beneath our feet. we have simply forgotten our own vastness. i hope this zine serves as a soft reminder that despite the norms that attempted to make us illegible, our connection to our ancestors and the earth is the bridge that connects us all. while our current language may eventually become obsolete, the intention remains eternal: we are using these words to plant a future where every heartsoul and bodymind can coexist in their fullest bloom.