Co-curators Audrey Lopez and John Connelly will discuss the curatorial process behind Sangre de Nopal/Blood of the Nopal: Tanya Aguiñiga & Porfirio Gutiérrez en Conversación/in Conversation.

Audrey N. Lopez, Ph.D. (she/they) is a curator and scholar who works at the intersections of public art + social practice and spatial + racial justice. They are interested in and buoyed by Anzaldua’s Borderlands, community archives, Antarctica, and anti-colonial, collective, and participatory approaches to curatorial work and art-making. Lopez lives in Providence, RI and works as the director and curator of Public Art for The Greenway in downtown Boston. They have taught graduate and undergraduate courses on decolonizing art and language at both the University of California Santa Barbara and RISD.

John Connelly is a curator and consultant based in Santa Barbara, CA. He was previously director of the Atkinson Gallery at Santa Barbara City College, and prior to moving to California he was director of The Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation in New York City. He ran John Connelly Presents in New York City for 10 years, a curatorial project and gallery. He co-founded the New Art Dealer’s Alliance (NADA) and High Desert Test Sites (HDTS), the experimental exhibition platform based in Joshua Tree. Connelly holds a B.A. in Art History from the State University of New York at Purchase and did his Master’s studies at the City University of New York, Hunter College. He taught in the Art Market Studies program at the State University of New York, Fashion Institute of Technology.

Image: Tanya Aguiñiga and Porfirio Gutiérrez in residence in Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico, 2022; photo by Javier Lazo Gutiérrez