art workers

Today we welcome artist and ceramist, Joel Gaitan. While celebrating life, death, and the afterlife, Gaitan's work studies the matters of self-identity, sexuality, and ancestral lineage. From forgotten tongues, to erased cultures, Gaitan immerses into traditional hand building clay techniques, keeping a sacred tradition from Nicaragua & Central America alive in a colonized world. Since encountering Gaitain's work on Instagram I have been seduced by his beautiful pre-colombian inspired sculptures. In this episode we discuss his journey into becoming an artist, his art practice and creating his bedazzled pre-Colombian divas. You can find Joel Gaitan's work on Instagram at Nicanahuac or at https://joelgaitan.art/ Produced & Edited by: Nathalia Morales-Evanks Jingle: Space Primo

Our next guest is the spiritual, playful and energetic, Ever Velasquez. This is such a special episode where Ever reminds us of the important things in life, like kindness, helping others and finding purpose. I hope you enjoy the episode! Ever Velasquez is an artist and Santera/Curandera based in Los Angeles. Known for her performative work and for her photo-based and collage works, Ever's practice uses the visual language and history of Yoruba religious culture to explore the legacy of colonialism and its interconnections with indigenous spiritual traditions, with a focus on women's issues. She is currently the Associate Director of Charlie James Gallery in Los Angeles, CA. Produced and Edited by: Nathalia Morales-Evanks Jingle by: space primo

This week's guest is a Nancy Lee. Lee (she/they) worked in art museums and organizations for 15 years in Communications roles for MOCA, GYOPO, and the Hammer. She is currently on sabbatical, experimenting with rest, play, volunteering, and other interests. Lee is also a self-taught textile artist and lives in their hometown of Los Angeles.

I started following the Instagram account Imagenes de Nicaragua in 2020 and through that account discovered the talented artist, Gabrielle Garcia-Steib. Gabrielle works in archives and moving image. Frequenting Nicaragua, and Mexico, her work explores the construction of narratives through outdated processes that connect Latin America with the Deep South. She is interested in ways in which collective memory and images are used to communicate in political, environmental and spiritual landscapes. She looks to build to interrogate our relationships with the places we come from and inhabit. Currently she is developing a project called Imagenes de Nicaragua which seeks to make photographs, documents and video from Nicaragua more accessible and public. I discovered Gabrielle through her work in the Instagram account, Imagenes de Nicaragua, in this episode we talk about her archival work, art and sustainability and her roots in Latin America and New Orleans.

I found out about Ravon through the newsletter she launched this earlier year, New Terms & Conditions, a glossary for an anti-colonial black feminist Critical Media Ecology or abc glossary for short. Ravon Ruffin Feliz (she/they) is a new york-based artist, cyber anthropologist, writer, educator, and founder of Citation Studio, a Black feminist experimental thinking studio mapping the possibilities of computing, archives, and nature with/on/for/at the internet. She has worked in the arts and culture sector for 10+ years tending to public engagements with art, archives, and the internet, URL and AFK. Ravon has held positions at the New Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture across education, public programs, and digital strategy design. She has a M.A. in American Studies from George Washington University, and a degree in Anthropology from VCU, two cultural landscapes that have deeply shaped her practice. In this episode we delve into Ravon's background in museums and also her views on technology through a black feminist perspective. Enjoy! Links: abcglossary.xyz (glossary coming soon here) blackle.com sfpc.study (school for poetic computation Jingle by: ⁠space primo

Welcome Phung Huynh to the art workers podcast! Huynh is a Los Angeles-based artist and educator with a practice in drawing, painting, public art, and community engagement. Her work explores cultural perception and representation. Huynh challenges beauty standards by constructing images of the Asian female body vis-à-vis plastic surgery to unpack how contemporary cosmetic surgery can whitewash cultural and racial identity. Her work of drawings and prints on pink donut boxes explores the complexities of assimilation and cultural negotiation among Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees who have resettled in the United States. In this episode she talks about how as an artist she is uncompromising, and how she deals with tokenism and how she hopes her art will create a legacy for story, family and for future generations. Click here for the art workers post on Phung! Edited by Alvaro Parra of ⁠De La Parra Productions⁠ Jingle by: space primo

Our first guest is Marvella Muro, Self Help Graphic & Arts Director of Artistic, Curatorial, and Education Programs and is currently curating SHG's Getty PST: Art x Science exhibition, Sinks: Places We Call Home. Marvella works tirelessly in Los Angeles arts communities to build a bridge between artists and community engagement. Edited by Alvaro Parra at De La Parra Productions Jingle by: space primo

Welcome to art workers!