meztli projects with support from the Mellon Foundation is launching the Cultural Worker Fellowship (CWF). The CWF is a cohort program focused on supporting highly underserved and marginalized artists, culture bearers, and Elders, specifically Native and Indigenous creatives, through the development of independent projects nurtured beyond the confines of capitalist and white supremacist frameworks of productivity. The CWF is an offering to honor the work of local artists, a space where these artists can create within an ecosystem of abundance. We define abundance as body, mind, heart, and spiritual fulfillment and alignment with the creative force that imbues all beings and entities.
meztli projects’ approach to creative development centers Indigenous forms of cultural production and knowledge-building where strategy and reflection grounds artists to work in reciprocity, in relationship with and in alignment with the efforts of First Peoples and other local Indigenous communities. Artists were selected because of their deep commitment to truth and community.
The inaugural cohort consists of:
Weshoyot Alvitre (Tongva)
David Calvillo aka Thundr One
Emilia Cruz
River Garza (Tongva)
iris yirei hu
Nic Hummingbird (Cahuilla/Apache)
Xela
Antonio Mejia
Damien Montaño
Art Morales (Gabrieleno-Tongva)
Lorene Sisquoc (Fort Sill Apache/Mountain Cahuilla)
Zora Zajíček
The meztli projects team is honored to continue our work supporting artists holistically. In addition to providing technical assistance, thought partnership, creative direction and logistical support for fellows, the meztli projects team views the CWF program as an opportunity to join artists in their vulnerability as we explore together how to best honor artists' unique and vital cultural contributions.
“Rarely do artists of color get to practice their craft without some special initiative or DEI strategy and we hope to provide a space where artists, especially Elders can just be, and practice just being with an ecosystem of support they should always be afforded, but usually are not.”
- Kenneth Lopez, Program Manager
“As a former grants manager, it has been a dream to oversee the development of this trust based fellowship program which centers artists as inherently valuable and supports them without pretense.
In this way, the Cultural Worker Fellowship nurtures Indigenous futurist imaginings. In the development of each artist's project and in the building of the fellowship, we are practicing reciprocity, and hold this space with intention to allow for the creative visioning that naturally springs forth when we are nourished, nurtured and embraced for the fullness of our being. This work would not be possible if it were not divorced from imperialist hegemony and white supremacist domination which necessitates survivalist thinking and reactivity.”
- Laura Nieto, CWF Program Director
About The Fellows
Comic Book Artist, Art Director, Writer and Illustrator Weshoyot Alvitre (Tongva/Scottish) uses pop culture and sci-fi alongside archival materials and tribal knowledge to spark conversations and provide fuller representation of her Indigenous community across colonial narratives.
Graffiti Artist Thundr One combines community murals with gang intervention and spiritual healing to guide under-served Black and Brown communities through releasing generational trauma and rebuilding pride and inter-city solidarity.
Emilia Cruz is an artist, educator and emerging curator based in Simi Valley whose work is an ethereal celebration of the feminine and her community.
Interdisciplinary Visual Artist and lifelong member of the Ti’at Society River Garza (Tongva) explores the intersections of Tongva and Chicano identity and culture in Los Angeles across time.
iris yirei hu's collaborative work draws on her Hmong heritage and extensive experiences learning from Indigenous communities in Southwest China, Taiwan, Oaxaca, Peruvian and Ecuadorian Amazon, American Southwest, and California, proposing imaginative ways to reconstruct oneself and expands ways of relating to one another amidst the historical and ongoing effects of global imperialism.
Nicholas Hummingbird (Cahuilla and Apache) is an educator and caretaker of California Native plants organizing for Native-led land stewardship informed by Indigenous Ecological Knowledge.
Xela is a cultural worker rooted in Boyle Heights using art and creative projects such as screen printing, zine-making, music and other art forms to center joy, sustainability, and reciprocity through an Indigenous-feminist and anarchist perspective.
Tattoo and Multi-medium Artist Antonio Mejia is renowned for his freehand drawn tattoos and continuing innovation of the Native and Chicano style, guiding the larger LA tattoo culture through his work to re-assert tattooing as powerful Indigenous technology, medicine that bridges art and ancestral knowledge.
Damien Montaño (Yoeme, O'odham and Purepecha) reframes jewelry-making and adornment as a communal practice connecting First Peoples across borders in his work as a Guerrilla Jeweler, Educator, Organizer, Tribal Advocate and Co-Editor of Two Spirit Times.
Art Morales (San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians) is a Tribal Elder, Historian and an accomplished self-taught photographer whose work archives life in his ancestral homeland of Tovaangar.
Expert Basketweaver Lorene Sisquoc (Fort Sill Apache and Mountain Cahuilla) is a prolific Elder and tribal community scholar ensuring ancestral knowledge is passed on in a good way through her continued work as member and co-founder of Mother Earth Clan (MEC) Cultural Program and Culture Traditions Leader and Museum Curator at Sherman Indian High School.
Zora Zajíček's work as a multimedia artist, curator, organizer, art historian and co-founder of Fin De Siècle delves into the connections between ancestry and apocalypse, exploring themes of veneration, prophecy, and ritual.
meztli projects
Press Contact:
Laura Nieto laura@meztliprojects.org
