Biodesign Challenge 2023 award recipient for Outstanding Social Critique.
Colores del Rio is a bioregional community engagement tool made of agricultural waste, sourced locally. It asks a California agriculture community in the Salinas area to look closer at the food systems they are acutely affected by and to show how local landfill-bound food waste can be a viable bio-material. This community engagement tool is biodesign-activism in response to local systemic issues involving the monoculture industry, the Salinas River-watershed, and impacted communities. Colores del Rio combines community engagement and a human-environment relationship through citizen-science. With this environmental justice tool, made of disposed red cabbage, youth become stewards of water and land, discovering what pH-colors emerge when we place Colores del Rio in a nearby body of water, having an impact on contaminated water. It invites the next generation of youth leadership to actively participate in biodesign, citizen science, and environmental justice, giving local food waste another life that is regenerative and supportive of people and ecosystems.
Colores del Rio originated within a California College of the Arts Biodesign class and continues as a collaboration with Xinampa (non-profit organization in Salinas), and Mount Toro High School’s science department.
Independent Study at CCA. 2021
Investigation of mycofabrication methods using reishi-mycelium (the root-like structures of mushrooms), sterile lab techniques at the Xinampa lab, and milling for rapid prototyping at CCA. Research findings were later integrated to design and facilitate an Intro to Biodesign workshop at Xinampa, a community bio lab in Salinas, CA.
Xinampa is a non-profit organization in Salinas, CA supporting pathways via workshops and public engagement in biodesign and biotechnology.
Digital application created for access to information about and workshops at Xinampa.
Logo on info card.
Strawberry Decay. 2020.
This video was created in response to the harmful impact pesticides had on my mother and many other agricultural workers that picked strawberries in the 80’s.
Illustration and layout design assets were created across print and digital platforms. From 2015-2018 I supported the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival communications director, Alice Lin, with various freelance and in house projects.
Yerba Buena Gardens Festival. 2018.
The Seeds of Trauma poster was created at the Florence Institute of Design International in response to the psychological impact separation is having on the children and families crossing the U.S. - Mexico border.
After: Taking New Form. 2019.
Teaching year 2019-2020 at Mount Toro High School, collaboration with Hijos Del Sol (non-profit), Día de Los Muertos exhibition.
A 90-frame stop motion animation created as a class, animating imagery created by 30 high school students showing the growth of a seedling emerging from soil and the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly, telling the story of metamorphosis and transformation, from life, decay, to growth.
Exhibited in Tokyo, Japan. 2010.
Dentro hay Dos (Inside are Two)
Materials: handmade paper (kozo) and cotton thread.
Methods: This paper was handmade in an intensive process from mulberry tree bark. Two sets of kozo fiber were treated differently to create this sculpture. Approximately twenty five sheets were used to form this sculpture from a set of one hundred sheets total. Some sheets were crumbled in momigami preparation to make the paper strong and pliable for sewing. The interior paper was folded and sewn for structural support.
Trágame Tierra. 2009. UCSB, a segment of thesis exhibition.
Human-sized sculptures covered with feather-like hand fused-cut plastics from grocers. The forms were the beginning of a deeper look at the human embodiment of labor, my cultural background, and my relationship with my mother.
