Escape from Fantasylandia: An Illegal Alien's Survival Guide

Enrique Chagoya, artist

born 1953

Escape from Fantasylandia: An Illegal Alien's Survival Guide, 2011

Where object was made: North and Central America

Material/technique: color lithograph; gold metallic powder

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 241.3 x 2032 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 9 1/2 x 80 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: Gift of Lucy Shaw Schultz

Accession number: 2013.0161

Not on display

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Brosseau Center for Learning: In Conversation with the 2018–19 KU Common Book

Chagoya’s folded books draw upon the form of Mayan codices and incorporate symbols and iconography from historical Mexican, Mayan, Aztec, Spanish and popular contemporary imagery to address issues of cultural contact and conflict. Escape from Fantasylandia incorporates the plumed serpent Quetzalcoatl throughout the top of the codex.

American Dream

Enrique Chagoya explores the fears of living as a person of color in America. In Here Comes the Bogey Man, Chagoya reworks one of 18th-century artist Francisco Goya’s Caprichos, a series of prints condemning the follies of Spanish society, to depict a mother and her children cowering in fear from a hooded white man. In Escape from Fantasylandia, the artist ironically uses a survival guide format to inform viewers about the challenges faced by undocumented immigrants. The different panels, such as the one featuring a man making a deal with the devil, expose the trials and perils faced by those seeking access to the American Dream.
—Erin Dellasega