A Message from our Founder
Recorded Twitch Events
Meet the Artists
Vasundhara Tolia
Kultura profile name: Vasu
Vasu is a contemporary painter who is constantly evolving her style. She lives in Bloomfield Hills, MI. Originally from India, she migrated to US for furthering medical career.
She was a very successful academician, mentor, clinician and researcher. After retirement, she learnt drawing and painting at local art center to pour her zeal for nature, humanity and other passions for a few years. Read more..
Maria Pilar York
Kultura profile name: Maria Pilar York
Chilean artist and writer who is living in Richmond, Virginia. Studied in Midlothian Art Academy with Robert Caldwell, famous wildlife painter, and photographer. I belong to James River Art League and I have taken part in different exhibitions in Virginia and North Carolina.
Roots, family and nostalgia are part of my immigrant history. Absences and presences, memories and love. That is my artwork.
Génova Alvarado
Kultura profile name: Génova Alvarado
My creative process has a need to approach society from a gender perspective as a woman, mother and artist. I reflect on the realities and social phenomena as a form of denunciation or enunciation against the injustices of the human condition.
From the various readings offered by the daily life of a woman, according to her diversity of roles, contexts and cultures; Something that I am currently working on is about the vulnerable, violent and at the same time victorious role of women in migratory transits.
Adriana Rondón-Rivero
Kultura profile name: Adriana Rondón-Rivero
Adriana Rondón-Rivero. Caraqueña based in Los Angeles, California. Visual Artist, Journalist and certified Yoga Teacher and Trauma Yoga Informed. I use my body, movement, sound, my voice, poetry, photography and video to create artistic experiences, ranging from video-art, performance art, art installations to participatory art pieces.
Intercepted by my condition as an immigrant woman of color, I make art around this theme and the body sensations about displacement and exile. I believe that art has a fundamental place in the transformation, redefinition and reimagining of painful issues as well as healing their deep wounds.
I also create participatory art where the contribution of the public is crucial for the creative process. Participatory art is a powerful tool for social change and my intention is to create spaces for healing. Read More…
Charles Philippe Jean Pierre
Kultura profile name: Charles Philippe Jeanpierre
My practice recognizes the erasure of our complex histories and challenges the narrative that we are perpetual outsiders. My work attempts to create the informed cultural context needed to make sense of the American connection to the Caribbean, and vice versa. Read more…
María Escalona
Kultura profile name: María Escalona
María Escalona is an artist in-between cultures, nationalities, and places.Born in Caracas, Venezuela, she immigrated to Canada at 19 to study arts.
Her work reacts, questions, and responds to the social tissue we live in, and is deeply rooted in her Venezuelan origins and inspired from her Canadian present. Her artistic practice explores the visual, linguistic, textile, and print media realms following the idea that being lost is not necessarily a bad thing. Read More…
Musah Swallah
Kultura profile name: musahswallah
Musah Swallah is a visual artist born and raised in Accra, Ghana. For Musah, art is a tool for self-expression, creating awareness, and transforming society. His paintings, sculptures, and mixed media works render stories that reflect African identity, cultural values, and daily life.
Her work reacts, questions, and responds to the social tissue we live in, and Currently, he paints on repurposed wooden panels, plywood, paper and canvases to create layered mixed media portraits. His current art speaks to the complex transnational identities of the African Diaspora. In May 2020, Musah completed a residency and exhibited with the BronxArtSpace. Read More…
Maria Lupianez
Kultura profile name: Maria Lupianez
Born in 1979, is a New Jersey native of Ecuadorian descent. Her artistic talents come from a long line of creatives including her father to whom she credits with building her a foundation and love for the arts.
As a youth, together with the guidance of her father, Lupianez won many contests and awards on a state and national level. Early on Lupianez started her family and concentrated on rearing her children. Read More…
Bronze Compere
Kultura profile name: bronzebond
I am a firm believer that the purpose of art, at its core, is to be a radiator of empathy. It is our search to be understood in some way, shape or form. Art can decorate, but to use it for that function is a minimization and simplification of what many choose to do.
Sometimes that goal is to make us uncomfortable, other times it is to ease the mind. But empathy exists in all of those things somewhere. Or, the lack of it.
Olivia Boules
Kultura profile name: oliviaboules
As an artist I am curious how visual information affects our lives and what are the forces that push us to create and visualize. My work relies on the inspiration from my family and represents stories of immigrant women throughout history as a way of commemoration and remembrance. To keep hold of the important memories and events that make up our stories in any way we can.
Meet the Judges
Seyram Agbleze
Judge & 2021 Exhibit Curator
Seyram Agbleze is a Ghanaian writer, artist and curator. He was educated at Central University College. His work focuses on shedding light on the arts of Africa. He is a recipient of the Thetis Blacker Award (2019) and the author of Journey of West African Textile Traditions and Reflections: Random Thoughts of a Ghanaian Artist. Seyram believes everyone has a right to a dignified life. He enjoys traveling and experimenting with different mediums of art.
Carlitos
OWW Virtual Exhibit Designer & Artist Advisory Board Member
I am an educator, programmer (🐍 sss gang), dancer, art admirer, avid tea drinker and explorer of new beers. My background is in accounting but transitioned to teaching. By day, I teach people in tech so they can land their dream jobs By night, I pursue my Master’s in Information Technology with a concentration in Security.
I always remind people that everything is hard until one day it isn’t. Or to borrow from my nephew’s favorite show Adventure Time, “sucking at something, is the first step to being sort of good at something.” The interview process is challenging. My job is to make it less intimidating, but it will require that you still try. Remember, there’s no such thing as failure, only feedback!
Luisa Mariño García, ATR-P, LCPAT (MD)
Judge & 2020 Mental Health Expert Guest Speaker
I am a registered and licensed art therapist and artist. I am the co-founder of Artspace Therapy, a community-focused art therapy practice. In my work as an art therapist, I especially enjoy establishing a trusting and authentic relationship with individuals and communities, collaborating with partners and adapting therapeutic interventions to specific needs. Prior experience as an art teacher in my home country, Colombia, has inspired me to research the intersections among art therapy, education, and community work.
Nicolás González (Nic)
Artist Advisory Board Member
Nicolás González, a Dallas, Texas native, earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Southern Methodist University. As a contemporary artist, González has diversified his field to range from traditional practices such as drawing, painting, and sculpture, to systematic, site-specific installations, and researched based works of art. González derives inspiration from his own identity as a first generation Mexican American, integrating distant memories, manual labor, and core family values found in his Mexican upbringing. Through his artistic practice, Gonzalez has contributed to his community as an art instructor within educational institutions, to creating vast and vibrant mural work. González is a member of Sigma Lambda Beta International Fraternity and co-founder of online gallery space, Gallery 86, with two other artists and brothers who promote and showcase their work via this platform. At the end of 2019, González was nationally selected to represent the Consulate of Mexico of Dallas at the Institute of Mexicans Abroad Binational Journey in Mexico City.
Salomé Cosmique
Judge & 2020 Artist
Salomé Cosmique is a Colombian artist, educator and curator currently residing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, (USA). She has a degree in visual arts from the University of Strasbourg in France. In 2012, (while in France) she obtained her National Diploma of Plastic Arts, with a concentration in sound arts from the School of Arts of the Rhine (Haut École D’art du Rhin) in Mulhouse, France. Upon finishing her studies, she moved to Puerto Rico, where she participated in several collective and individual exhibitions. In 2017, Salomé moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, (USA) where she has continued to develop her artistic, curatorial and educational career. She is currently a curator of Dissident Bodies and Dislocada/ Dislocated and works as an educator at The Barnes Foundation.
For Salomé, the arts form a positive vehicle which can bring beneficial changes to society as well as the potential to transform lives, art as a healer, something she promotes in her artistic pursuits. Since 2012, her performance work has been inspired by colonialism, immigration, women’s inequality and dissident bodies. Through her pictorial work the artist seeks to remember the memories of our ancestors. She has exhibited in Europe, United States, American Latin, India and the Caribbean.
Did you like the music from the exhibit?
Check out the Love 4 Immigrants Sound Cloud here!
Follow the artists here:
- Liah Perez, Take Me Back
- Simona Smirnova – Empty Land (feat. Chris McCarthy)
- Desanguashington Volver / La Mochila
- Chris Urquiaga, I’m Here
- Sol Follow Your Light ft. The Family Sound by Sol
