Isabella Cruz-Chong is an interdisciplinary artist and supporter of collective cultures. She takes on the roles of maker, designer, educator, and researcher and uses visual and interactive design, physical computing, sound, programming, photography, and raw materials such as dirt and wood to translate her ideas. Subject matter often stems from her experience growing up crossing the international border between Tijuana, Mexico and San Diego, California. Through this lens, she addresses boundaries, liminality, and unification with a desire to foster self-awareness and blur lines between divisive perspectives.
Isabella Cruz-Chong received an MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has been featured in a range of exhibitions at venues including Memorial Union Gallery, Fargo, ND; Botox Temple Street, Hong Kong; Rabbithole Projects, Brooklyn, NY; Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY; SXSW, Austin, TX; Sullivan Galleries, Chicago, IL; and Hospital Gregorio Marañon, Madrid, Spain. Most recently, Cruz-Chong was highlighted in Art F City and participated in the panel discussion “Community Practices: Art and Intervention” at Smack Mellon in Brooklyn.
I grew up crossing the international border between Tijuana, Mexico and San Diego, California. This upbringing created a liminal state of mind that I embody and inhabit. My work comes from this space and is an attempt to physically and sensorilly manifest and create an entry to it. In addition, I feel that a desire to experience this in-between space will help to blur social boundaries. Originating in personal experience and reflection, immigrants’ stories and the “third culture” — utilizing physical computing, sound, and natural elements such as soil — speak to the malleability and humanistic aspect of mental and physical boundaries while investigating an alternative way of perceiving ourselves and our surroundings aside from a purely dualistic approach.
