Rebel Betty is an AfroIndigenous Puerto Rican poet, multidisciplinary artist and cultural worker based in Chicago.

Rebel is using a multidisciplinary approach to depict the magic and movement of Black, Brown and Indigenous communities and to trace back ancestral forms of resistance and culture through storytelling and archiving moments in history.

Her visual art, organizing and cultural work center on the preservation of culture in Black and brown communities through facilitated dialogue, poetry, music, education and the arts. Rebels visual art makes use of historical archives and contemporary photography to create colorful and impactful multimedia collages and videos that speak truth to power and document the power and beauty of Black, Brown and Indigenous communities.

Themes in Rebels work are gentrification, decolonization and honoring Black and Indigenous struggles for liberation and healing through connection to the past.

Rebel has presented, offered workshops and performed at the following events and institutions: Northwestern University, L.A. Zine Fest, College Art Association Annual Conference, Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center, The Garfield Park Conservatory, The University of Chicago, University of Illinois-Champaign Urbana for Black & Latina Womxns Summit 2019, Old town School of Folk Music, Art Institute of Chicago - 2017, University of Illinois at Chicago - 2018, DePaul University - 2018, Allied Media Conference - 2018 and New Latin Wave Festival - 2018 in New York.

Rebel has been featured in The Chicago Reader, The Chicago Tribune, South Side Weekly, Gozamos, Remezcla and Hyperallergic.

Rebel is also an educator with more than 12 years experience providing justice minded school based arts programming and workshops for preschool through adults. She has taught multiple apprenticeships with institutions like After School Matters at the Art Institute of Chicago and Puerto Rican Arts Alliance, Arts & Public Life, South Side Home Movie Project, Son y Arte, Northeastern Illinois, and The Chicago Poetry Center.

THEMES

Gentrification, Decolonization, Healing, Black, Brown and Indigenous Culture, Feminism

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY

Rebels work is currently available for viewing at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago as part of the Midwest Photographers project.

https://www.mocp.org/collection/mpp/betty_rebel.php