Itzel Basualdo (born in 1995, Miami, FL) is a cultural worker, artist, educator, writer, but above all a person. Thinking about belonging, place, and status quo hierarchies as a Mexican-Argentinean-American, she works with personal and found material across photography, video, text, installation, sound, and sculpture to destabilize race, gender, and class systems.
Basualdo received a BFA with honors from Florida International University and an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has been shown at the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum, NSU Art Museum, Heaven Gallery, LOOP Barcelona, among others, and has been awarded residencies at Artpace San Antonio and VONA. Her writing has appeared in The Acentos Review, Saw Palm Journal, Creative Nonfiction, Ginger, [PANK], Plates Journal, and her poem “I send you cariño at night” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2018. She is the recipient of a Redbull Arts Microgrant Award, an Oolite Arts Ellies Creator Award, and the South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship Award.
She is a Year 9 member of NEW INC, and is one of the co-founders of the speculative, borderless production lab R.I.C.O.R.O.B.O.