In connection with the exhibition Christopher Suarez: ESPÍRITUTECTUAL, the AD&A Museum will host an online artist panel discussion exploring the unique urban architecture of Latino neighborhoods in Southern California. Portland-based artist Ana Serrano and Long Beach-based ceramicist Christopher Suarez will each present on their work, followed by a conversation moderated by Los Angeles-based artist rafa esparza about growing up in SoCal, how the area’s built environment has influenced their work, and the relationship of these unique spaces to family, community, and the creation of culture.

Register in advance for this online Zoom event (free admission):

https://ucsb.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_RNF1oHygQZOVXJLdgr3GeQ

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the event.

Ana Serrano was born in Los Angeles, California. She earned her BFA from Art Center College of Design (2008). Serrano is a first-generation Mexican American and is inspired by the intersection of her dual cultural identities. She is best known for creating work that references the built environment using brightly-colored cardboard and paper. She has exhibited her work in solo and group museum exhibitions, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Vincent Price Art Museum, National Museum of Mexican Art and the Craft and Folk Art Museum.  (Photo Credit: Iris Schneider)

Christopher Suarez (b. 1994, Long Beach, California) received his BFA in Ceramic Arts from California State University, Long Beach. Suarez has served as the Lead ArtsBridge Teacher at the California State University, Long Beach and as an Education Intern at The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles. Suarez was awarded a Summer 2021 residency at Township 10 in western North Carolina, and most recently was Artist in Residence at the American Museum of Ceramic Arts (AMOCA). His work has been exhibited at Sebastian Gladstone, John Wolf Fine Art, and Werby Gallery at CSULB.

rafa esparza (b. 1981, Los Angeles; lives and works in Los Angeles) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work reveals his interests in history, personal narratives, and kinship, his own relationship to colonization and the disrupted genealogies that it produces. Using live performance as his main form of inquiry, esparza employs site-specificity, materiality, memory, and what he calls (non)documentation as primary tools to investigate and expose ideologies, power structures, and binary forms of identity that establish narratives, history, and social environments. (Photo credit: Stefan Ruiz)