ARTISTS
Juan William Chávez
Juan William Chávez is a 2012 Guggenheim Fellow in Fine Arts and an artist, organizer, and native beekeeper of Indigenous Latinx and Irish descent. His interdisciplinary practice spans painting, installation, sound performance, knowledge-sharing workshops, and zines. His work is grounded in a holistic understanding of ecology, ritual, craft, and ancestral heritage. He frequently collaborates on social-practice art projects focused on environmental stewardship, food sovereignty, and decolonization.
Fernando Saldivia Yáñez
Fernando Saldivia Yáñez is a filmmaker based between Puerto Williams, Chile, and Chicago, USA. He obtained his BA from Carleton College and his MFA form the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His practice explores the politics and poetics of the quotidian through an intimate observational style. His work has been shown at different festivals and spaces such as the Chicago International Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Prismatic Ground, L'Alternativa Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, Santiago International Film Festival, the Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art, and the Gene Siskel Film Center. His latest short film, Your Tomorrow Will Be my Song, premiered at the 61 Chicago International Film Festival.
Érika Ordosgoitti
Érika Ordosgoitti (b.Caracas) lives in Chicago, Illinois. A performance, audiovisual, and poetry artist, Ordosgoitti holds a degree in Fine Arts with a concentration in New Media from the Instituto Universitario de Artes Armando Reverón in Caracas. For the last 25 years, her research has focused on studying the concept of freedom in relation to art. Ordosgoitti is known for her site-specific interventions in public space, which she calls "photo-assaults" ("fotoasalto"). These are performative declarations of freedom intended to bear witness to her fleeting existence and inspire new acts of disobedience. Risk is a significant element in her artistic practice. Her work explores the mechanisms of power that operate on behavior, using her own body as the fundamental signifier and a space of contention, recognizing it as power's primary target and, therefore, the sole vehicle for freedom.
