Join exhibiting artist Tatiana Arocha in her tea salon project, Impending Beauty, and Land Akin curator Gabriel de Guzman, as they host a roundtable discussion on food, land, and identity. This horizontal conversation will welcome guest speakers Jungwon Kim, Head of Creative and Editorial at Rainforest Alliance, an international NGO working to create a more sustainable future where people and nature thrive in harmony, and Ceci Pineda, Executive Director of BK ROT, a Brooklyn-based, youth-powered food waste bike-collection and composting project, along with exhibiting artists Kevin Quiles Bonilla, Rachelle Dang, and Christine Howard Sandoval. The participants will discuss topics such as how the term “sustainability” has evolved in relation to food production and food justice, how we can respect the land through responsible agricultural practices, and how food can be a catalyst for creating connections across diverse cultural identities.
Clockwise, from left: Tatiana Arocha, photo by Peter Ross; Kevin Quiles Bonilla, photo by Brian J. Green; Rachelle Dang; Ceci Pineda, photo by Larisa Jacobson; Jungwon Kim; Gabriel de Guzman, photo by Michael Hansen; Christine Howard Sandoval.
This is a virtual program that will be held on Zoom, 6:30-8 PM EST.
PARTICIPANT BIOS
Tatiana Arocha is a visual artist originally from Bogotá, Colombia, and now based in Brooklyn, NY. Arocha grew up in the midst of nature, traveling since childhood with her family across the diverse ecological regions of Colombia, but it was the Ensenada de Utria in the jungles of El Choco that ultimately shaped her artistic worldview. She has understood since she was very young that nature needs to be experienced in order to find a real connection, and flora and fauna should be encountered in their natural habitats to be fully grasped. Arocha’s art practice involves creating layered detail, graphic compositions, and application of digital techniques learned in her earlier professional career as a graphic designer and illustrator. She has exhibited in the U.S., U.K., Italy, and Colombia, with solo shows at Sugar Hill Children’s Museum for Arts & Storytelling, Yale University, and Queens Botanical Gardens, group exhibitions at Wave Hill, BRIC, The Wassaic Project, and in the NYC subway via MTA. In 2019, she received the Sustainable Arts Foundation individual award for mixed media. Residencies include LABverde in the Brazilian Amazon, Centro Selva in the Peruvian Amazon, Arquetopia in Puebla, Mexico, The Wassaic Project, NY, and Zea Mays, MA.
Kevin Quiles Bonilla is an interdisciplinary artist born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, who currently lives and works between Puerto Rico and New York. Bonilla explores ideas around power, colonialism, and history with his identity as context. His work has been presented in Puerto Rico, The United States, Mexico, China, Belgium, and Japan. He is the recipient of an Emerging Artist Award from The John F. Kennedy Center (2017). He has recently presented his work at The Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, The Shelly & Rubin Foundation’s 8th Floor Gallery, Dedalus Foundation, and the Leslie-Lohman Museum’s Project Space. He has been an artist in residence at Art Beyond Sight’s Arts + Disability Residency (2018-19), Leslie-Lohman Museum’s Queer Performance Residency (2019) and LMCC’s Workspace Residency (2019-20). He earned a BA in Fine Arts – Photography from the University of Puerto Rico (2015) and an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons The New School for Design (2018).
Born in Honolulu, Hawai`i, Rachelle Dang combines a practice based in sculpture and installation with research into Pacific colonial legacies. Her work examines historical forms and complex environmental connections between places, people, and things. She has exhibited her work in New York at Socrates Sculpture Park, Fergus McCaffrey, Nathalie Karg Gallery, Lesley Heller Gallery, A.I.R. Gallery, Motel, and mh PROJECT nyc. Additional exhibitions include the Honolulu Museum of Art, Hawaii Pacific University, and the Haverford College Art Galleries. Her residencies include Shandaken: Storm King Art Center, the Smack Mellon Artist Studio Program, the Studios at MASS MoCA, Cooper Union, and Sculpture Space where she received an Emerging Sculptor Fellowship. She was awarded a 2019-2020 Fellowship with A.I.R. Gallery and will participate in a 2021 residency at Yaddo. Her solo exhibitions have been reviewed in the Brooklyn Rail and Hyperallergic. She earned a BA from Wellesley College and an MFA from Hunter College.
Christine Howard Sandoval is an interdisciplinary artist of Obispeño Chumash and Hispanic ancestry. Her work challenges the boundaries of representation, access, and habitation through the use of performance, video, and sculpture. Howard Sandoval makes work about contested places, such as the historic Native and Hispanic waterways of northern New Mexico; the Gowanus Canal, a Superfund site in New York; and an interfacing suburban-wildland in Colorado. Howard Sandoval has exhibited nationally and internationally at The Museum of Capitalism (Oakland, CA), Designtransfer, Universität der Künste Berlin (Berlin, Germany), El Museo del Barrio (NY, NY), and Socrates Sculpture Park (Queens, NY). Her first solo museum exhibition debuted at The Colorado Springs Fine Art Center in May 2019, during which time she was the Mellon Artist in Residence at Colorado College. Howard Sandoval currently has two solo exhibitions: A wall is a shadow on the land at the Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver, BC) and Timelines For The Future: Christine Howard Sandoval at Disjecta Art Center (Portland, OR). Sandoval has also been awarded residencies at the Santa Fe Art Institute, Triangle Arts, and The Vermont Studio Center. She earned a BFA from Pratt Institute (NY) and an MFA from Parsons The New School for Design (NY). She is currently Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Art Praxis at Emily Carr University on the traditional, ancestral lands of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Musqueam nations (BC).
Jungwon Kim leads the Creative & Editorial team at the Rainforest Alliance, an international NGO working to create a more sustainable future where people and nature thrive in harmony. The alliance works in partnership with farmers, companies, and forest communities to protect nature, improve livelihood opportunities for rural people, and make responsible business the new normal. Prior to joining the Rainforest Alliance, Jungwon worked as a journalist across video, digital, radio, and print. She managed the editorial team at Amnesty International USA for nearly 10 years and has worked as a news writer and on-air reporter for CNBC Asia, Public Radio International, and American Public Radio. Her writing has been published in The Nation, Newsday, Vibe, and ColorLines. Kim did her undergraduate studies (B.A. Philosophy) and graduate studies (M.J./M.A. Journalism and East Asian Studies) at the University of California, Berkeley, where she was awarded the Fulbright, Foreign Language Area Studies fellowship, and Korea Foundation fellowships.
Ceci Pineda
Ceci Pineda is dedicated to the earth, climate justice, and Queer Trans* People of Color (QT*PoC) liberation through community based strategies. Currently they are the Executive Director of BK ROT, a youth-powered food waste bike-collection and composting project in Lenape Canarsie lands known today as Brooklyn, NY. They are also a singer-songwriter who uses music as a way to collectively navigate climate and ecological grief, and they form part of a collective working to establish a healing herb farm and forest that centers QT*PoC.
Gabriel de Guzman is Curator & Director of Exhibitions at Smack Mellon, where he organizes group and solo exhibitions that feature emerging and under-recognized mid-career artists whose work often explores critical, socially relevant issues. Before joining Smack Mellon’s staff in 2017, de Guzman was the Curator of Visual Arts at Wave Hill, organizing solo projects for emerging artists, as well as thematic group exhibitions that explored human connections to the natural world. As a guest curator, he has also presented shows at Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Programs, BronxArtSpace, Dyckman Farmhouse Museum, Rush Arts Gallery, En Foco at Andrew Freedman Home, the Affordable Art Fair New York, Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance, and the Bronx Museum’s 2013 AIM Biennial. Prior to Wave Hill, he was a curatorial assistant at The Jewish Museum. His essays have been published in Nueva Luz: Photographic Journal and in catalogues for the Arsenal Gallery at Central Park, Kenise Barnes Fine Art, and the art institutions mentioned above. He earned an M.A. in art history from Hunter College and a B.A. in art history from the University of Virginia.
Image above: Tatiana Arocha, Impending Beauty, 2019, vintage settee and armchairs, upholstered with digital prints on cotton, hand-painted with acrylic, and hand-decorated porcelain with decals and gold paint. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Walker Esner.