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Brief Profile

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

Lives: MIT – Cambridge, MA – USA
Home Base: San Francisco, CA – USA
Born: Chile

Negrete is a resident of the USA since 1988, where she earned an Interdisciplinary Art degree with a concentration in Public Art, Multimedia and Education from the San Francisco Art Institute (2006). This will be her second year of graduate work at MIT Program of Art, Culture and Technology (former Visual Art Program), School of Architecture and Planning. Working from her studio and participatory process The Counter Narrative Society, she is researching creative counter narratives as systems for critical social engagement to address disparate ideas about mass punishment and inequality in the USA.

Before coming to MIT, she had been working in the development of the Sensible Housing Unit (SHU) project, which is a tactical object that engages audiences in critical dialogue about the human rights issues of prison control units. She has presented this project at the University of San Francisco (2009), Mission Cultural Center for the Latino Art (2009) and the Mission Arts Performance Project (2008).

She is currently a nominee for the Bridge Residence 2010-11 (Headlands Center for the Arts) and a recipient of the MIT Presidential Award 2009-10 and MIT Department of Architecture Fellowship 2010-11. Upon graduation she expects to return to San Francisco, where she would like to pursue a career in Academia and Critical Arts.

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Web-Design Solutions

Saturday, March 14th, 2009

I also develop websites for non-profits, artists and projects. If you are interested in my services, please feel free to contact me for a consultation via my direct information.

List of the available services:

Custom Photographic Images and Graphics for Headers and Logos
Flash slide shows and videos
Custom CSS modifications for WordPress Templates
WP-installations and basic set-ups
HTML websites

Selected websites I have developed:

Custom CSS modifications from WP-templates:

HTMLs:

GALLERY in order from older to newest:

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Artist Statement

Monday, January 12th, 2009

SYSTEMS FOR CRITICAL SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT and REAL TIME ACTIONS

As a multidisciplinary artist, I work with an urgency to create socially engaged art. This need was born from a seminal and devastating event in my life: In 1995 my brother was sentenced to life in prison. Beyond the familial tragedy and personal commitment to biweekly visits to a maximum-security facility, I became deeply involved in prison abolition education and volunteered at the Prison Activist Resource Center. I began to imagine creating art that could change society and was encouraged by the prison activists to actualize these ideas. From this supposition, I created my first multidisciplinary art event, which attracted artists, activists and scholars committed to dissecting the prison industrial complex. Since then, I have been preoccupied with the idea that relational experiences can connect us to a reality beyond our immediate existence. With a necessity to communicate—both in the literal and abstract sense—I strive to create meaningful situations that can be conveyed through tactical objects, participatory processes and real-time actions.

For the past years, I have produced a series of works by creating “tactical situations” that explore social issues about migration, gentrification, incarceration and race. These situations have meant to deliver similar experiences to play, chance, plot, role-play, and social networking. Much of this work has been done in collaboration with friends, audiences and colleagues. Participants and creators become involved in temporary illusions that appear to be literal, critical and conceptual. For example, “Hunting the Now” is a game (17” x 11” inches offset double-sided print), I created in collaboration with art therapist Fiona Glass and radical historian Chris Carlson, under the alias The Counter Narrative Society. The piece was a bilingual treasure hunt that humorously engaged artists and audiences to reflect on the fading history of two parallel streets impacted by gentrification and migration. As we distributed the game containing 15 destinations, participants were given a disposable camera to capture their own impressions. A participant from the game wrote in her blog: “When we took pictures of the future condominiums that will stand on Mission and 18th, we tried to capture the way the bare pipes and scaffolding made the construction site look like a prison.”

Heavily influenced by anti-art, conceptual art and anti-oppression movements, the general goal of my art making is to develop systems of critical social engagement and real-time actions to address ethical-social dilemmas. Here are two theoretical art contexts I enjoy exploring and will be further investigating in my graduate work at MIT’s Visual Arts Program (VAP):

The first is to develop projects that function as the “Critical Artist” in the development of “Inter-Human Aesthetics” – an idea that is deeply influenced by Joseph Beuys, Ligia Clark, Guillermo Gomez-Peña and Nicolas Bourriaud who have coined the following concepts: 1) The artist’s role as a social engineer in the production of “social-sculptures”; 2) The object as visual device which “dissolves into an awareness of the body”; 3) The body as a site in lieu of “border-crossing”; 4) The methods for social engagements as “relational aesthetics”.

With the second context I investigate the inter-human relations and real time actions as a “make – believe world”. Catherine Bates’ distinctions between how the Theorist of Play differs from the playwright in their intention to create “man-made illusions of the play-world” are essential in creating these works. To Bates, the theorist of play is so conscious of the implications of her actions that she finds herself “discovering that everything – including [her] own claim to credibility – is a game.” The playwright, on the contrary, “fashions plots, constructs myths, and lures players, readers and spectators into a world that neither conceals its illusoriness nor seek to propose that there is anything behind or beyond.” In this sense, I see my work and my body functioning both as the theorist of play and the playwright in the construction of tactical situations.

Working from these frameworks, I originate situations as systems that have taken the shape of:

•   Objects and Designs as functional tools for tactical expression
•   The whole-body as performers, altered identities and game players
•   Installations and Public Interventions as spaces for social engagement

Changing society takes more than one person’s desire and effort, likewise it requires a great deal of public participation to create tactical situations that address specific social issues. Yet, these works when properly deployed, may be transformative to individuals, whose actions might otherwise be eclipsed by group actions.

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CV

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

EDUCATION

MIT – Master of Science in Visual Studies (SMVisS), 2011 Candidate
San Francisco Art Institute: BFA – Interdisciplinary Arts, 2006
City College of San Francisco: Courses in Fine Arts and Education, 1997-2002
Foothill College: Courses in Design, Photography, Art History and English, 1995-1996
Universidad de Playa Ancha, Chile: Courses in Methodology, Ar t History and Painting, 1993-1994

FESTIVALS, HAPPENINGS, and PUBLIC WORKS. (select)

Racial Pre_Filing Vest
“RECESS 2: Cultivating Urban Agency” – Art of This gallery, Minneapolis, MN 06.30.2010
The Blues Calling
MIT Program of Art, Culture and Technology, Cambridge, MA 03-05.18.2010
Glaciers Under Our Skin
MIT Program of Art, Culture and Technology, Cambridge, MA 05.04.2010
He is Warehoused for 15 Year to Life
Galeria de la Raza, SF CA 02.2009
Wounded Witnesses Wounded Storytellers
MIT Program of Art, Culture and Technology, Cambridge, MA 12.16.2009
(SHU) Sensible Housing Unit : AIR
“Unlock the Box” – Mission Cultural Center, SF CA 05.21.2009
An Hour of Participatory Actions with the SHU,
Mission Cultural Center, SF CA 03.37.2009
Subliminal Sketches of a SHU
The Counter Narrative Society, SF CA 09.2008
Wear Orange for a Day
Plain Human and Intersection for the Arts, CA, MA and TX 03.2008
Grounded?
Southern Exposure, SF CA 12.2007
Humane Slaughter Acts Performance Festival,
SlaughterhouseSpace, Healdsburg CA 11.03.2007
Stages of Culture,
South of Market Arts (SOMArts), SF CA 08.2007
Illusion V: Beyond Our Block,
Kimball Gallery, De Young Museum, SF CA 09.2006
Illusion IV: The Conquest,
Mission Cultural Center for the Latino Arts, SF CA 06.2006
Borderland Film/Art Festival,
Galeria de la Raza, SF CA 12.2004

GROUP EXHIBITIONS (select)

Future Landscapes Designed by Women, MCCLA, SF CA 02.2009
Strange Hope, Galeria de la Raza, SF CA 02.2009
The Prison Project, Intersection for the Arts, SF CA 02.2008
Hidden Histories, HYPERSEA (Hyper Socially Engaged Arts), SF CA 09.2007
Il Gardino Secreto, Living Gallery, Lecce – Italy 03.2007
Paradigms Lost, Galeria de la Raza, SF CA 10.2004 – 03.2005
Unfurled, Pond Gallery, SF CA 11.2004
Export Art, San Francisco World Affairs Counsel, SF CA 11.2003
Two 9/11’s In A Lifetime, New College of California, SF CA 09.2003
Secrets Of Ordinary Things, McBean Gallery, San Francisco Art Institute, SF CA 03.2003
Drawing Resistance [www.drawingresistance.org] 2001-2005

LECTURES AND TALKS

Artist Talk/Performance/Installation, The Blues Calling
MIT Program of Art, Culture and Technology, Cambridge, MA 03.18.2009
Artist Talk/Performance/Installation, Wounded Witnesses Wounded Storytellers
MIT Program of Art, Culture and Technology, Cambridge, MA 12.16.2009
Artist Talk with Migdalia Valdes and Mabel Negrete
Intersections for the Arts, SF CA 05.23.09
Visiting Artist and Lecturer, Socially Engaged Art Strategies & the SHU Project
University of San Francisco SF CA 03.31.09
Visiting Artist, Hunting the Now project as an Urban Intervention
San Francisco Art Institute: Graduate Critical Studies SF CA 12.2007
Artist Talk, Wear Orange for a Day project
Intersection for the Art’s Open Process series, 10.3.2007

TEACHING AND MANAGEMENT EXPERIENCE (select)

Director of After School and Community Engagement,
Mission Science Workshop SF CA 07.2007-04.2008
Associate Art Instructor,
San Francisco Art Institute: City Studios’ After School Program SF CA 08.2006-01.2007
Art-Science Instructor and Assistant Director,
Mission Science Workshop SF CA 01.2006-06.2007
Art-Instructor,
Southern Exposure’s Artist In Education Program SF CA 11.2005-05.2006
Project Ar t Director,
Hypersea: Living Walls Mural Project SF CA 09.2005-12.2007
Art Instructor,
Mission Cultural Center for the Latino Arts: Youth Summer Program SF CA 06-08.2005
Art Instructor,
Hypersea: Public Informative Art Program, Luther Burbank Middle School SF CA 09.2004-05.200
Supervisor,
City College of San Francisco: Teachers Prep’s Intern Program SF CA 09.2004
Curriculum Developer,
Media Alliance’s Raising Our Voices Program [Fall] SF CA, 2004
Art-Science Instructor,
Mission Science Workshop: After School and Summer Program SF CA 09.2001-06.2004

AWARDS, GRANTS and RECOGNITIONS

MIT – Presidential Award, 2009-201o
MIT – Department of Architecture Award, 2009-2011
Community Art Grants by Zellerbach Family Foundation & W.A. Gerbode Foundation, 2006
Osher Memorial Merit Scholarship – San Francisco Art Institute, 2003-2006
Americorp Educational Award, 2001
John D. Anderson Scholarship, 2001
Bay Area Chilean Center Scholarship, 1995
Summer Scholarship Program – Academy of Arts, 1991

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Co-founding Member, Plain Human 2007-Present
Curatorial Board Member, Mission Community Council: Plaza 16 Project 2006-2007
Co-founder and Director, Hypersea 2005-Present
Curatorial Board, Anti-Advertising Agency 2005
Member, Borderland Collective 2004-2005
Co-founder, SAW – Street Art Workers 2003
Co-founding Member, Brass Liberation Orchestra 2002-2005
Member, San Francisco Print Collective 2000-2005
Member, Prison Activist Resource Center 1998-2001

REVIEWS and ARTICLES

B.A.N.G Lab. MIT ACT: Letter of Support for UCSD Prof. Dominguez. April, 2010
Roberts, Adrienne. SFMOMA | Open Space: Home is a Four letter word. 8.14.2009
Le Duc, Aimee. Journal of Aesthetics and Protest: (de)Appropriation Project, Bruce Tomb and the Valencia Street Wall, Issue #6 San Francisco, 2008
Whiteside, Amber. San Francisco Bay Guardian: Unchain my art, Wednesday March 19, 2008
Swanhuyser, Hiya. SF Weekly: Insider Art, March 19, 2008
Torr, Jolene. Juxtapoz, Art and Culture Magazine: The Prison Project, Friday, 22 February 2008
Zassenhaus, Eric. KQED, Arts & Culture: Hidden Histories, September 14, 2007
Caiati, Vito. Bari Sera: Il Giardino Segrete in cui fiorisce l’arte, Tuesday, March 27, 2007
De Fillippi, Franceca. Exibart: Il Giardino Secreto, March 26, 2007
Ricci, di Daria. Cittå Magazine: “Il Giardino Segreto” ed è successo, March 22, 2007
Swanhuyser, Hiya. SF Weekly: The Walls Are Alive, March 1-7, 2006 pg. 23
Repodmon. Independent Media Center: The Borderland Interventions Have Already Begun Bay Area: December 2, 2004
Slaton, Joyce. SF Weekly: They Walk the Line, December 1-7, 2004 pg. 24
Crouse, Edward. San Francisco Metropolitan: Watch Out! December 6, 1999 pg. 14

PUBLISHED IN BOOKS AND CATALOGS

Intersection for the Arts & San Francisco State University. Prison/Culture, exhibition book. 2010 SFWeekly
Patricia Rodrigruez, curator. Future Landscapes Designed by Women, exhibition catalog, 2009
Dores Sacquegna, curator. Il Gardino Secreto, exhibition catalog, 2007
Klein, Susan, Suellen Miller and Fiona Thomson, eds. A Book for Midwives: Care for Pregnancy, Birth and Women’s Health Berkeley: the Hesperian Foundation, First Edition: December 2004 pgs. 78, 179, 180, and 341
Gomez Barris, Macarena. Two 9/11’s in an Lifetime: A Project and Exhibition on the Politics of Memory San Francisco: 2003 pgs. 4-5
Rodgers, Christy, ed. What If? Journal of Radical Possibilities San Francisco: Vol. II, August 2002 pg. 82
Jaffe, Clella ILes, ed. Public Speaking: Concepts and Skills for a Diverse Society Canada: Thomson Learning, Inc. 2001 pgs. 164-65, 334-335

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Mabel Negrete