2018 Latina of Influence | Celia Álvarez Muñoz
Hispanic Lifestyle is pleased to recognize Activist and Artist “Artivist” Celia Álvarez Muñoz as a 2018 Latina of Influence. Ms. Alvarez Munoz along with our entire list of 2018 Latinas of Influence are invited to participate in Hispanic Lifestyle’s 2018 Latina Conference taking place April 4 and 5, 2018 in Ontario, California.
In her words . . .
My mission in art making has been of an Artivist; as an artist and an activist.
Since my days in teaching art at all levels; preschool to college, the goal has always been to develop validation and a love of learning through the intersection of all subjects and the arts. For there is art in all disciplines. In doing so, it has given much more meaning to the process of art-making.
The teaching perspective gave rise to devising topics for artists’ residencies where one can develop art from collaborations with communities, large and small, over a period of a month or more. These were from commissions from artists spaces to museums, to public art projects. I was able to highlight the following:
1. A Phoenix AZ airport’s connection to WW II.
2. A convention center expansion to a river link park, to a city’s main plaza and river walk history in San Antonio.
3. A New Austin Central Library acknowledgement to it’s power and a water treatment plants.
4. A coming-out gay community of young Texans moving to San Francisco, CA.
5. An evidence of a dramatic demographic shift displacement in El Paso, TX due to the settlement of Mexico’s Chamizal Treaty.
6. A class collaboration at SMU to interview the resisting West Dallas citizenry to the Calatrava bridge revitalization.
7. A collective installation with 2 retirement communities remembering their participation with Snugg Harbor in Staten Island, another in Monterrey Mexico’s Cruz Blanca Brewery.
8. A community’s attitude towards “aliens,” in Roswell, NM.
9. An installation protesting the femicides of Cd. Juarez Mexico, a result of NAFTA maquiladora killings.
10. A Smithsonian Institute international portrait exhibit with study guide, of Latino achievers.
All of the above, plus others, spell what it means to be a citizen of a community, a city, state, country, or the world, are all issues to address through art. Of recent, I’m very honored to have my work included in The Getty Funded, PST LA/LA, “Radical Women: Latin American Art 1960 – 1985,” at The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, traveling next to Brooklyn Museum of Art, and Brazil.
Other items : Archives of America Art, Oral History Interview with Oral history interview with Celia Alvarez Muñoz
Nominated by her niece Rebecca Flores-Castro
