The border is what defines Tucson for new MOCA director Gabriela Rangel

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Gabriela Rangel arrived in Tucson with only half her books. The other half she donated to a public library before moving her life from New York to the Sonoran Desert.

She brought her two cats — Olga, from Argentina, and Conrad, from New York — and set out to lead the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson. Here, she says, she has found balance in the mountains of Sabino Canyon and in a city where she still senses something she believes many global metropolises have gradually lost: a deeply democratic and community-oriented spirit.

Rangel, who was born in Caracas, Venezuela, became executive director of MOCA in September with a clear idea of what a Latina leader could bring to a borderland institution…

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