ARTISTS

Claudia Peregrina

Claudia Peregrina is a multidisciplinary artist from Mexico City, who devotes her practice to engendering individual and community healing through art. She largely works with immigrant populations, primarily women who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder caused by sexual violence, domestic abuse, cancer diagnoses, and/or life as an undocumented person. Claudia is ever-conscious of the obstacles immigrants, particularly women, face, and she believes that empathy is one of the strongest tools for developing my work in the social arena. Claudia began her training in art as a child with lessons from her indigenous P’urhepecha grandmother from Michoacán, Mexico, who would engage her in storytelling while doing embroidery, demonstrating the two to be inextricably linked. During their conversations, they would easily explore meaningful and occasional taboo topics, which opened her eyes to the ability of art to give voice to our inner selves. She received my formal education in art from La Universidad de las Bellas Artes (University of Fine Arts, Mexico City) and La Universidad Autónoma de México (UNAM: National Autonomous University of Mexico), where she received degrees in contemporary art and psychology, respectively. Claudia is also a certified counselor and hold a certificate in art therapy.

Eric César Morales

Eric César Morales is an activist, academic, and interdisciplinary artist. He works as the Resourcing Coordinator for Philly Thrive, a multiracial, cross-class, grassroots environmental and climate justice organization. He received his MA and Ph.D. in Cultural Studies from Indiana University, with his master’s thesis focusing on the representation of Latinos in the media and his doctoral dissertation exploring issues of cultural appropriation and globalization. He has taught several university courses on Latinos in Film/Literature and has been a discussant at numerous film festivals, including the Philadelphia Latino Arts and Film Festival (PLAFF). His published academic works have been featured in the Oxford Handbook of American Folklore, Race and Pedagogy Journal: Teaching and Learning for Justice, and the Journal of American Folklore.  His artistic practice encompasses creative writing, dance, and culturally rooted crafts made from natural materials. His forthcoming creative writing publication, “La Llorona’s Tears” will appear in the book, Weeping Women: La Llorona’s Presence in Modern Latinx and Chicanx Lore (2024), published by Trinity University Press. He has performed indigenous dance presentations in Tahiti, California, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and has even done a solo performance for Superbowl Village. Currently, he coalesced and is working with a collective of Latine artists to produce Amor y Familia: Lotería in Philadelphia—a project that reinvents a 130+ year old Mexican board game, Lotería, to create a safe, fun, and loving environment where Latine families can learn about inclusive terminology and practices around gender, sexuality, and sexual health.

Ileana Doble Hernandez

Ileana Doble Hernandez's concept-based, socially conscious and interdisciplinary practice includes photography, video and experimental installations with a focus on activism. Ileana creates multimedia projects that explore issues of gun violence, immigration and the imperialistic practices of the United States, from her perspective as a mother and as an immigrant from Mexico, living in the U.S. for more than a decade. She's interested in the use of art as a way to provoke and challenge viewer’s preconceived representations. By combining non-traditional methods and materials, Ileana explores ways in which artist and audience collaborate. Through her postcards installation more than 500 postcards have been mailed to U.S. elected officials advocating for gun control. Since 2020, she's been collaborating with Imaginary Lines Project, an ongoing socially engaged artistic endeavor that allows people to share their immigration journey through the U.S./Mexico border. Her works are part of public and private collections and have been published and exhibited in galleries and museums in North America, Europe and Asia. More recently in a two-person exhibition at Fountain Street Gallery in Boston, MA. Ileana is a Studio Resident at the Boston Center for the Arts, a 2023 Boston Arts and Business Council Fellow, a 2021 NALAC Leadership Institute Fellow, and the 2019 College of Art and Design Outstanding Graduate Student from Rochester Institute of Technology.

Nadia Hironaka & Matthew Suib

The Philadelphia-based artists have been collaborators since 2008. They are recipients of several honored awards including a 2015 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, Pew Fellowships in the Arts and Fellowships from CFEVA and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Their work has been widely exhibited both domestically and abroad at venues including, Fondazione MAXXI (Rome), New Media Gallery (Vancouver), The Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia), UCLA Hammer Museum, PS1/MoMA, Philadelphia Museum of Art and Arizona State University Art Museum. They have been artists-in-residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts, the Banff Centre, Marble House Project and the Millay Colony for Arts. Matthew Suib is co-founder of Greenhouse Media and Nadia Hironaka serves as a professor and department chair of film and video at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Hironaka & Suib are represented by Locks Gallery. The couple, along with their daughter reside in South Philly.