*click images below to see projects*
MIA EVE
Mia Eve (Chicago, 1984) is a multidisciplinary artist whose individual practice and community collaborations focus on radical resistance. From 2009-2014, she co-founded and directed EDELO (En Donde Era la ONU / Where the United Nations Used to BE). A centripetal community and artistic space of collective activities in Chiapas, Mexico, the project challenged the notion of a traditional ‘artist residency’ by placing visiting artists alongside rural autonomous communities that have long been creating a rich visual culture, using performance, theater, and poetry to demand drastic social, political, and economic change.
Mia makes site-specific work in terrains of spiritual, social, and cultural resistance. Working in globally engaged collectives of artistic practice, she incorporates healing strategies from pre-colonial practices and uses magical realist aesthetics to explore the psyche. Engaging whole communities, these projects aim to counteract eugenic civic paradigms and connect art to radical political strategies for liberation. Eve received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. A cofounder of EDELO, she is a lead artist in other notable collaborations such as Zapantera Negra, Embassy of the Refugee, and Embassy of the Disabled. Select presentations include the Creative Time Summit and Queens Museum, and she is the recipient of the State of Maryland Independent Artist Award.

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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.
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.
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.
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.
A DREAM OF BEING: ARTE URGENTE
Visiting Artist Lecture and graduate critiques invited by Laurie Palmer, UCSD, October 2022
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:
THE WORK OF ARTE URGENTE PERFORMATIVE ACTS OF POLITICAL AND ARTISTIC IMAGINATION
LALVC Journal, Rebecca M Schreiber, Featuring EDELO work, 2022
PERFORMING SANCTUARY
Migration and Society, Rebecca M Schreiber, Featuring EDELO work, Issue 4, 2021
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:
STARDUST BONES IN MY WOMB
Murals and community Performances, Pina Palmera Rehabilitation Center for people with disabilities, Oaxaca, MX, 2023.
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
Artist-in-residence at the Institute of Arts and Sciences, Reciprocal Ecologies and the UCSC Arts Research Institute, 2022-23.
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:
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
EDUCATION
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Master of Fine Arts, Sculpture, 2009
University of Maryland, Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honors, 2006

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