T. M. Cabrera

I’m a trans nonbinary Marxist designer from Texas. My educational background is in performance art, design and sculpture (with semesters at Goldsmiths College London and School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston), followed by a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Washington University in St. Louis on a full tuition merit scholarship. After graduating I became an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis and in that position, led group design critiques, mentored undergrad students on design concepts, and mentored graduate students on graphic techniques. After uni and teaching, I began working on a series of research-informed sex toys and implements based on my studies on sex and gender (see some of these projects on Instagram at @excitingbakesale). 

Most of my life I’ve been embedded in museum culture — for 20+ years I either interned, worked, studied or gave tours at museums including the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, ICA Boston, Cooper Hewitt New York, Decordova Museum, Maccarone Gallery NYC, Van Abbemuseum, Temporary Arts Centre Eindhoven. 

I came to the Netherlands to study Social Design at the Master’s level at the Design Academy Eindhoven. Afterwards I worked as a copywriter with Vlisco, and became one of the founders of Eindhoven’s queer collective Queerhoven. During the pandemic my creative path took a turn. I immersed myself in studying geopolitics and decolonial and Marxist perspectives, bought a risograph machine in 2020, and dedicated myself to producing print-based propaganda.

My desire as a human being and a maker is to use my particular set of skills towards the common good. To me this means creating a world in which people can thrive free of economic exploitation and mass injustice, where we have the ethical foundation to turn our attention towards the deceleration of Earth’s climate collapse. To do this we need to expand and strengthen revolutionary community. So I want to combine my academic background, writing experience, visual and information design skills, cultivated knowledge of marketing and advertising, and my risograph, and put that towards several goals:

No. 1: crafting approachable entry points into revolutionary theory and historical perspectives through the dissemination of accessible messages and literature

No. 2: prioritizing Black Radical, Palestinian, Land Back, Trans Liberation, Proletarian Feminist perspectives in order to combat chauvinism in revolutionary movements

No. 3: creating joy through illustrations of another future, not one that’s rooted in unreachable ideology, but in what could truly be possible.