EMBAJADA DE INUTIL

2007- Present

EDI is a social practice project that examines how ableism, colonialism, and white supremacy have traumatized disabled bodies generationally.  EDI (Embassy of the Useless) is the absurd that mimics formal diplomacy, creating a parallel world to that of ableism promoted by monolithic capitalism. The title comes from a derogatory Spanish term for the disabled, “inútil”, translated back into English as “useless”.  Here we use poetic acts to transmit a new vision.

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EDELO MIGRANTE

2014 - Present

EDELO is an alias name Mia works from with co-founder Caleb Duarte.  Under this umbrella, artist run projects of globally engaged collectives are formed that create expressions of underground communities through distributed authorship.  To that end, the work demands transdisciplinary creative forms in sculpture, performance, and community-based public intervention.  Through communal living, interviews, film screenings, workshops, participants engage in a shared dreamscape.

 

 

EDELO (En Donde Era La Onu/ Where The United Nations Used To Be)

2009 -2014

EDELO was an artist run project in Chiapas, Mexico that created sculptural performances and community events through relational aesthetics, social practice, and social sculpture. EDELO, had a residency program for international artists and local communities that promoted collaborative exploration of diverse disciplines through intercultural exchange, and functioned as a safe house for the community.  The work at its core focused on the lessons and use of art by the EZLN, the Zapatista autonomous indigenous movement in Chiapas. 

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EMBASSY OF THE REFUGEE

2014 - Present

Embassy of the Refugee are collaborative, interactive temporary sculptural performances that symbolically appropriates the authority of the state--a nomadic Embassy that is sanctioned by its own creators as an autonomous territory for sanctuary and creativity.  Nomadic Project Created with Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Communities in Movement.  Caleb Duarte is lead artist, Mia Eve acts as supporting artist - Select projects below Mia has participated in and/or ran.

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EMBASSY OF THE REFUGEE

Collaborative project creating habitable sculpture with Syrian and Iranian refugees, tinyBE, Metzlerpark, Frankfurt, Germany, May-September 2021

 

EMBASSY OF THE REFUGEE

Community art laboratory and performances with Haitian and South American Refugees, funded by a Creative Capital grant (awarded to Edelo’s Caleb Duarte), Chaparral Refugee Camp & Embajada Migrante, Tijuana Mexico, March-May 2021

 

WE ARE WORTHY OF LIFE 

Two-month self-directed residency and short film/interview series created with Deheisha Refugee Camp, West Bank, Palestine 2019

 

CHASING THE BEAST

This project began at the Suchiate River--the border between Guatemala and Mexico--and traveled north to three safe houses, creating a collaborative, multimedia and documentary project with South American refugees traveling the migrant routes through Mexico. 2016

 

 

ZAPANTERA NEGRA 

2011-present

Artistic encounters between the Black Panther Minister of Culture, Zapatistas, and other artists from the Americas, uniting the bold aesthetics, revolutionary dreams, and dignified declarations of two leading emancipatory political movements. Activities of this collaboration include creating community murals and art pieces for traveling exhibitions, presentations, and cultural exchange. This is a collaborative project - Select projects below Mia has participated in and/or facilitated.

 

GIRO GRÁFICO

Zapantera Negra, Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid, Spain, 2022

 

SEMINARIO 12

Zapatista Space Program Panel Speaker, Mexico City, 2022

 

ZAPANTERA NEGRA, Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco, Caltilolli, Ciudad de Mexico, 2021

 

AND IF I DEVOTED MYSELF TO ONE OF ITS FEATHERS, Kunsthalle Wein Museum, Vienna, 2021

 

ELEMENTS OF VOGUE. UN CASO DE ESTUDIO DE PERFORMANCE RADICAL, Museo del Chopo de la Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 2019

 

LOS HUECOS DEL AGUA: ARTE ACTUAL DE PUEBLOS ORIGINARIOS / THE HOLES OF WATER: CURRENT ART OF ORIGINAL PEOPLES Zapantera Negra large embroidery installation, Museo del Chopo de la Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico, 2019

 

UN MUNDO DONDE CEPAN MUCHOS MUNDOS / A WORLD WHERE MANY WORLDS FIT

Zapantera Negra large embroidery installation, Casa de las Americas, Havana, Cuba, 2018

 

DO SILÊNCIO À MEMÓRIA / FROM SILENCE TO MEMORY

Paco das Artes, Sau Paulo, Brazil, 2018

 

COMPARTE - ZAPANTERA NEGRA MURAL

Zapatista Conference for Artist & Scientists, University of the Earth, Chiapas, Mexico 2016

 

HEMISPHERIC INSTITUTE OF PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

Choreographing Social Movements in the Americas, Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Montréal, Canada, 2014

 

AUTONOMOUS INTERGALACTIC SPACE PROGRAM

Led by artist Rigo 23, EDELO hosted this autonomous space program and interdisciplinary collaboration with over one hundred weavers, seamstresses, painters, carpenters, cultural activists and organizers of southern Chiapas, Mexico for six months. Materials from this project continue to exhibit internationally. Works from this project exhibit across the globe, including in Los Angeles (2012), Guandong, China (2013), Queens, New York (2019), and Rockville, MD (2020)

 

 

 

LECTURES:

ARTIST TALK With Caleb Duarte, Headlands Artist Residency, California, 2023.

 

ZAPANTERA NEGRA Latin American Embroidery Conference, MUAC Museum, Mexico City, 2023.

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A DREAM OF BEING: ARTE URGENTE

Visiting Artist Lecture and graduate critiques invited by Laurie Palmer, UCSD, October 2022

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COLLECTIVE ART, EDUCATION & RADICAL RESISTANCE

EDELO and Chto Delat in Conversation moderated by ABC No Rio New York and Common Notions Press in New York, August 2022

 

ZAPANTERA NEGRA

Presentation with Caleb Duarte, Mil Mundos Bookstore, Brooklyn NY, June 2022

 

ZAPANTERA NEGRA

Presentation with Caleb Duarte, Interference Archive, Brooklyn NY, May 2022

 

BODY, LAND, DREAMS: THE CONTESTED SITES, Visual Voices College-wide Artist Talk, George Mason University, MD, 2021

Artist Talk Graduate Class, George Mason University, MD, 2020

 

ZAPATISTA MOON, Alternos Mundos - Art and Science Fiction in the Americas, Lecture for Ethnographic Documentary by Thor Anderson in coordination with Intergalactic Spaceship, Queens Museum, New York, NY, 2019

 

PSYCHOMAGIC, Visiting Artist, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 2019

 

DISABILITY IN SAN CRISTOBAL, Panel Speaker, La Ensenansa, San Cristobal, Chiapas, 2018

 

SUBTERRANEA AL ESPACIO, Visiting Artist, Artist League, Montgomery College, Rockville, MD, 2017

 

THE EXPERIMENTAL EXERCISE OF FREEDOM, Visiting Artist, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 2016

   

COMPARTE, Zapatista Conference, Zapantera Negra Presentation, Chiapas, Mexico, 2016

 

ART AS A DIGNIFIED REBELLION, Visiting Artist, Montgomery College, Rockville, MD, 2016

   

20 YEARS AFTER NAFTA MANY WORLDS ARE POSSIBLE, Creative Time Reports, December 16, 2013

 

CREATIVE TIME SUMMIT, EDELO Presentation, New York, NY, 2012

 

EDELO, Lecture, Stanford University Summer International Honors program, Chiapas, Mexico, 2011

 

ART AND BODY, Visiting Artist, Montgomery College, Rockville, MD, 2010

 

WORD, Monthly guest speaker on Radio Series Juliana Pivato, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 2009

 

 

 

PRESS AND PUBLICATIONS:

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THE WORK OF ARTE URGENTE PERFORMATIVE ACTS OF POLITICAL AND ARTISTIC IMAGINATION

LALVC Journal, Rebecca M Schreiber, Featuring EDELO work, 2022

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PERFORMING SANCTUARY

Migration and Society, Rebecca M Schreiber, Featuring EDELO work, Issue 4, 2021

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PIE DE PAGINA

La Orilla de Paris Saluda al Escuadrón Zapatista, Public mural Zapantera Negra, Paris France, July 10, 2021

 

INSURGENT IMAGINATION

The Sailing Stones Act, Podcast Interview Episode 2, December 2020

 

GATOPARDO

Historias de un mundo distinto, Latin American magazine, Featuring Zapantera Negra, December 2020

 

ZAPANTERA NEGRA BOOK, Common Notions, New York, NY, 2016

New Updated Edition published in 2022

 

MISSION LOCAL

Residents Shape Gentrification as They See It, J.J. Barrow, June, 2015

 

THE GUARDIAN

Chronicle of a Death Untold, Oliver Laughland, June, 2015

 

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Big, Little S.F. Arts Groups Bury Hatchet, Divvy Up City Money, Emily Green, May, 2015

 

EL TECOLOTE

Zapantera Negra at SFSU, January, 2013

 

MIRADA SUR

Zapantera Negra, August, 2012

 

MIRADA SUR

Para Quien Exige La Mejor Information, Victor Vieyra Santamaría, November, 2011

 

DIARIO DE CHIAPAS

Arte en Todo Chiapas, Jeny Pascacio, September, 2011

 

CUARTO PODER

Tierra Por Oro Belleza Por Terror, Victor Vieyra Santamaría, June, 2010

 

 

 

AWARDS:

INDEPENDENT ARTIST AWARD, Maryland State Awardee, March 2021

CULTIVATE, Project Grant, April 2020

FOUNDATION FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, Emergency Grant, March 2020

DORIS DUKE CHARITABLE FOUNDATION, Edelo Migrante, 2017

CREATIVE TIME, Open call winner, awarded to EDELO, New York, NY, 2014

FENDENSEN FAMILY FOUNDATION, awarded to EDELO, Oaxaca, Mexico, 2010 & 1012

SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO, Full merit scholarship, Chicago, IL, 2006-2009

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, Full Scholarship, CAPA, College Park, MD, 2002-2006

 

 

 

EXHIBITIONS, PERFORMANCES, AND COMMUNITY COLLABORATIONS:

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STARDUST BONES IN MY WOMB

Murals and community Performances, Pina Palmera Rehabilitation Center for people with disabilities, Oaxaca, MX, 2023.

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ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

Artist-in-residence at the Institute of Arts and Sciences, Reciprocal Ecologies and the UCSC Arts Research Institute, 2022-23. 

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VISUALISING ABOLITION

Invited artist by curator Rachel Nelson to begin long term project, Santa Cruz, California, 2022-2025.

 

BIG INK

Invited artist for printing large scale wood cut with Big Ink, Sarah Silberman Gallery, Montgomery College, Maryland, USA, 2022

 

AFRICAN MEMORY

Dakar Biennial, Collaborative Performance Lac Rose, Village De Arts, Dakar, Senegal 2022

 

SOMOS FRAGMENTOS DE LA LUZ QUE IMPIDE QUE TODO SEA NOCHE

Institute of radical imagination, Featured Aureliano, Centro Cultural Corrala Museo de Artes y Tradiciones Populares, Madrid 2021

 

THE SAILING STONES ACT

Solo exhibition, Decade-long retrospective, VisArts, Rockville, MD 2020

 

YARD OF THE YARD

Featured I am Worthy of Life, curator Susan Main’s Meeting Ground residency, Swale House, Governor’s Island, New York 2020

 

HUNDRED HEROINS

52nd film online film festival, featured Bartolo, a weekly program of films by or about women, curated by Lisl Ponger 2020

 

FESTIVAL TECNOFEMINISTA CYBOGRRRLS CINEMA

Featuring Resistencias Sonoras, Mexico City, Mexico 2019

 

LATINX: ART BEYOND THE BORDER

Featuring Chasing the Beast, Delta College, Stockton, CA, October-November 2019

 

SANTOS / SAINT

Three-month community social sculpture workshops and performance, El Ambo Bajo EZLN, Mexico 2018

 

PRIMER ENCUENTRO INTERNACIONAL POR MUJERES QUE LUCHAN / FIRST INTERNATIONAL GATHERING FOR WOMEN IN RESISTANCE, Estoy Aqui Si Miras/I’m Here If You Look, disability lecture and performance between persons with disability and Zapatistas, Morelia Caracol, Chiapas, Mexico 2018

 

A DECOLONIAL ATLAS: STRATEGIES IN CONTEMPORARY ART OF THE AMERICAS

Featuring Arte Urgente in traveling exhibition, 2017

Union College, Mandeville Gallery, Schenectady, NY, 2017

Tufts University Art Gallery, Medford, MA, 2018

Vincent Price Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA, 2018

 

OUTBURST

Featuring Entierro, EM Wolfman Books, Oakland, CA 2017

 

KLANGHAUS

Featuring Boleros, Z-Space, San Francisco, CA 2017

 

ICONS & SYMBOLS OF THE BORDERLAND

Featuring El Otro Lado / The Other SIDE, Juntos Art Association, Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, TX 2016

 

SOMOS ANIMAL / WE ARE ANIMAL

Artist in Residence, Mural and community performance, Piña Palmera Centro de Atención infantil, A.C. Oaxaca, Mexico 2016

 

RESISTENCIAS SONORAS / SOUNDS OF RESISTANCE

Co-Director of Performance Laboratory with Oncogrrrls breast cancer survivors, La Gozadera, Mexico City, Mexico 2016

 

LA AMAPOLA ROJA

Co-artistic director, community workshops, exhibitions and programming surrounding issues of Black Lives Matter, gentrification, and homelessness in the Mission District for six months, Red Poppy Art House, San Francisco, CA 2015

 

RESURFACING 

Featuring Arte Urgente, Mission Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA 2015

 

MEMORIA VIVA / LIVING MEMORY

A two-hour sculptural performance with day labor workers, SOMARTS Making a Scene, 50 Years of Bay Area Alternative Spaces, San Francisco, CA 2015

 

MUNECA / PUPPET

Artist in Residence at Rehabilitation Center Piña Palmera Centro de Atención infantil, A.C, Pochutla, Oaxaca, Mexico 2015

 

DISS_ABLE_ING

Performance concerning themes of inaccessibility at conference, Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, Montreal, Canada 2014

 

LA BUSCADA / THE SEARCH

Lead artist in realizing mural interventions with family members, students and local youth on the trucks of corporations "borrowed" by the students from the rural school, Normal Raul Isidro Burgos de Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, as a form of pressuring the return of the 43 students alive from the Mexican government, part of a three-week, self-directed residency, Guerrero, Mexico 2014

 

NASA

Tested exoskeleton for IHMC & NASA, performed for engineers concerning themes of technology for conquer vs rehab, Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, Robotics Laboratory, Pensacola, FL, 2010 & 2013

 

IN MOTION

Featuring Arte Urgente, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, Utah 2013

 

AYUDAME? / HELP ME?

A day of magical-realist public body performances in collaboration with several differently abled youth, Chiapas, Mexico 2013

 

ARELIANO

Video performance created in collaboration with Aureliano Martinez and El Ambo Bajo EZLN, Chiapas, Mexico 2013

 

MI CUERPO HECHO DE MAIZ / MY BODY IS MADE OF CORN

Created prosthetic legs for and in collaboration with Manual Gonzalez, Chiapas, Mexico 2013

 

BOLEROS / SHOE SHINERS

Boleros is a culmination of two separate projects that worked with over 20 working children and youth in three-week workshops on public intervention, sculpture, and performance in a shared authorship, Chiapas, Mexico, 2010 & 2013

 

ARTE URGENTE / URGENT ART

Community performances and rituals, EDELO solo exhibition, La Galeria, Chiapas Mexico 2012

 

PADRE NO ME PEGUES / FATHER DON’T HIT ME

Community performance and workshop in collaboration with three local Mayan women in response to an intense wave of femicide in San Cristobal de las Casas Central Plaza, Chiapas, Mexico 2012

 

INTIERRO / BURIAL

The men and children of El Ambo Bajo break the land to symbolically bury the past in a post-colonial act embracing the harsh histories of slavery and genocide. El Ambo Bajo EZLN, Chiapas, Mexico 2012

 

UNA MONEDA / SPARE SOME CHANGE?

Performance and workshop with La Pocha Nostra, Ex Teresa, Mexico City, Mexico 2011

 

BARTOLOMAY

Workshop and public body and sculptural performance, Piña Palmera Centro de Atención infantil, A.C, Oaxaca, Mexico 2011

 

POLITICAL PRISONERS

Three-week public performance with family members in response to a political prisoners' hunger strike occupying the central plaza, San Cristobal de las Casas Chiapas, Mexico 2011

 

ARTE AUTONOMO / AUTONOMOUS ART

Edelo creates a three-day arts festival with resident artists creating workshops of diverse content, along with festivities and communal living, El Ambo Bajo EZLN, Chiapas, Mexico 2010

 

NO PASA NADA / NOTHING HAPPENING

Installation and Community Performance, Galeria el Cerillo, Chiapas, Mexico 2010

 

WHERE THE UNITED NATIONS USED TO BE

Featuring EDELO poster series, Red Poppy Art House, San Francisco, CA 2010

 

TIERRA POR ORO, BELLESA POR TERROR / LAND FOR GOLD, BEAUTY FOR TERROR

24-hour Inauguration event of EDELO, multimedia exhibition with over 50 local and international Artists, Chiapas, Mexico 2010

   

 

 

TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

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BATIK

Batik Workshops given to local students in collaboration with Village De Arts, Dakar, Senegal 2022

 

MOTHERSHIP

Three-month workshop for Veteran Amputees with a focus in storytelling, Afrofuturism, and Zapatista Cosmology. Creating body sculptures and performance, Veterans Administration Hospital, Washington, DC, 2019

 

SHAI  KUMAR

One-month workshops culminated in a short film, Gokarna, India, 2019

 

SFAI

EDELO substitutes for Rigo 23’s performance graduate classes, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA, 2015

 

OUR BUILT CITY

Six months of community workshops surrounding issues of Black Lives Matter, gentrification and homelessness in the Mission District using installation, performance, and ceremony. The Red Poppy Art House, San Francisco, CA, 2015

 

LIMOSNA

Sculpture and painting mentorship (2010-2014), in collaboration with Family Xun, Chiapas, Mexico

 

EL PLANTON

Month-long art workshop series of crafts and traditional sewing with displaced women occupying the central plaza, Chiapas, Mexico

 

PINTA

Painting in contemporary art practice, lead instructor and organizer for weekly painting classes.  Students from the University of Sciences and Art in Tuxla Guitierrez and local and international artists and youth.  Beginning, intermediate, advanced.

EDELO, Chiapas Mexico, 2009-14

 

ART TEACHER

Art course for children with severe mental handicaps and their guardians, Piña Palmera Centro de Atención Infantil, A.C. Oaxaca, Mexico, 2009

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EDUCATION

School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Master of Fine Arts, Sculpture, 2009

University of Maryland, Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honors, 2006