This roundtable discussion on sustainable fashion, impact on the land, and cultural identity will be hosted by exhibiting artist Tatiana Arocha in her tea salon project, Impending Beauty, and Land Akin curator Gabriel de Guzman. Joining the conversation will be guest speaker Angel Chang, American designer who works with indigenous artisans in rural China to make her seed-to-button, zero carbon womenswear line, and exhibiting artists Esteban Cabeza de Baca and Allison Maria Rodriguez. The participants will discuss topics such as how to produce clothing in an environmentally responsible way using ethical labor practices and how fashion can reflect diverse cultural identities while expressing decolonial political views.    

This is a virtual program, which will be held on Zoom from 6:30-8 PM EST. Please find the full Zoom instructions at the bottom of this page.

Image above: Clockwise, from top left: Esteban Cabeza de Baca, Photo by Heidi Howard; Angel Chang, Photo by Albert Zanetti; Gabriel de Guzman, Photo by Michael Hansen; Allison Maria Rodriguez, Photo by Ashley Green; Tatiana Arocha, Photo by Peter Ross

PARTICIPANT BIOGRAPHIES

Tatiana Arocha is a visual artist originally from Bogotá, Colombia, and now based in Brooklyn, NY. Arocha grew up in the midst of nature, traveling since childhood with her family across the diverse ecological regions of Colombia, but it was the Ensenada de Utria in the jungles of El Choco that ultimately shaped her artistic worldview. She has understood since she was very young that nature needs to be experienced in order to find a real connection, and flora and fauna should be encountered in their natural habitats to be fully grasped. Arocha’s art practice involves creating layered detail, graphic compositions, and application of digital techniques learned in her earlier professional career as a graphic designer and illustrator. She has exhibited in the U.S., U.K., Italy, and Colombia, with solo shows at Sugar Hill Children’s Museum for Arts & Storytelling, Yale University, and Queens Botanical Gardens, group exhibitions at Wave Hill, BRIC, The Wassaic Project, and in the NYC subway via MTA. In 2019, she received the Sustainable Arts Foundation individual award for mixed media. Residencies include LABverde in the Brazilian Amazon, Centro Selva in the Peruvian Amazon, Arquetopia in Puebla, Mexico, The Wassaic Project, NY, and Zea Mays, MA.

Esteban Cabeza de Baca was born in San Ysidro, CA, one of the largest border towns between the United States and Mexico. His work emerges from his Mestizo culture in the Southwest United States. Cabeza de Baca’s work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions at venues such as Gaa Gallery, Provincetown, MA; Fons Welters Gallery and Kunstfort Vijfhuizen, both in Amsterdam; Gaa Projects, Cologne; and Boers-Li Gallery, New York. He has received numerous grants and awards including a Robert Gamblin Painting Grant; Stern Fellowship, Columbia University; Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program Award; Stokroos Foundation Grant; and Henk en Victoria de Heus Fellowship. He holds a BFA from The Cooper Union and an MFA from Columbia University. His work is represented By Garth Greenan Gallery.

Angel Chang is an American womenswear designer who has been working with ethnic minority artisans in southwest rural China for the last eight years. She began her career designing for the Donna Karan Collection in New York and Chloé (See by Chloé) in Paris. Her first eponymous label (2006–8) incorporated smart textiles into hi-tech garments and received several accolades including the Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation Award and the Cartier Women’s Initiative Award. The collection’s use of innovative materials, including color-changing prints, light-up fabrics, and self-heating linings, was a first for the American designer market. Disillusioned by technology’s unfulfilled promise for innovative textiles, she sought to understand the future of clothing better by studying the ancient past. Since 2010, Angel has worked closely with ethnic minority fabric masters in the rural mountain villages of Guizhou province, China. Her workshop studio was created in 2012 to bring global appreciation for indigenous craftsmanship and to revive traditional fabric-making practices in need of urgent safeguarding. As a TED Resident and Smithsonian Artist, Angel now speaks to global audiences about fashion, sustainability, and indigenous knowledge. She earned an MA in Modern Art from Columbia University, and BA cum laude in Art History & Visual Arts from Barnard College in New York City.

Allison Maria Rodriguez is a first-generation Cuban-American interdisciplinary artist working predominantly in video installation. Her work focuses extensively on climate change, species extinction, and the interconnectivity of existence. Through video, performance, digital animation, photography, drawing, collage and installation, Rodriguez creates immersive experiential spaces that challenge conventional ways of knowing and understanding the world. In addition to her art practice, she is a curator, educator and arts organizer. Rodriguez is a grand prize winner of the Creative Climate Awards sponsored by The Human Impacts Institute and she was also recently awarded an Earthwatch Communications Fellowship for a residency at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre to work on their “Climate Change at the Arctic’s Edge” project. In 2019, she was honored by WBUR’s The ARTery as one of “The ARTery 25”, a celebration of 25 millennials of color impacting Boston’s arts and culture scene.

Gabriel de Guzman is Curator & Director of Exhibitions at Smack Mellon, where he organizes group and solo exhibitions that feature emerging and under-recognized mid-career artists whose work often explores critical, socially relevant issues. Before joining Smack Mellon’s staff in 2017, de Guzman was the Curator of Visual Arts at Wave Hill, organizing solo projects for emerging artists, as well as thematic group exhibitions that explored human connections to the natural world. As a guest curator, he has also presented shows at Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Programs, BronxArtSpace, Dyckman Farmhouse Museum, Rush Arts Gallery, En Foco at Andrew Freedman Home, the Affordable Art Fair New York, Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance, and the Bronx Museum’s 2013 AIM Biennial. Prior to Wave Hill, he was a curatorial assistant at The Jewish Museum. His essays have been published in Nueva Luz: Photographic Journal and in catalogues for the Arsenal Gallery at Central Park, Kenise Barnes Fine Art, and the art institutions mentioned above. He earned an M.A. in art history from Hunter College and a B.A. in art history from the University of Virginia.

FULL ZOOM INSTRUCTIONS

Smackmellon .org is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Smack Mellon Roundtable: Sustainable Fashion
Time: Feb 4, 2021 06:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

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