Panel Discussion: The Art of Belonging

Oct 7, 2023 4:00 PM-5:00 PM

Join us for a conversation with Visiting Artists Ronald Rael and Maria de Los Angeles, moderated by the director of Protégete at Conservation Colorado, Beatriz Soto. 

This event is free and open to the public. Registration is appreciated.

Artists Ronald Rael and Maria de Los Angeles both pursue concepts of belonging in their work. Rael addresses the idea of physical and environmental belonging by experimenting with new printing technologies and architectural alternatives to building with earth in the modern era. De Los Angeles draws upon identity and migration through her colorful and layered murals, sculptures, drawing and paintings. Both artists bring a sense of belonging to their work that is influenced by their upbringing and community connections. They will discuss how those relationships and experiences impact their artistic practice.

Panel

Ronald Rael

Professor Ronald Rael is the Eva Li Memorial Chair in Architecture in the Department of Architecture in the College of Environmental Design, and is Chair of the Department of Art Practice at the University of California Berkeley. His past leadership roles have included serving as Department Chair, Director of the Masters of Architecture, and Director of the Masters of Advanced Architectural Design programs. He is distiguished as being both a Bakar and Hellman Fellow, and directs the printFARM Laboratory (print Facility for Architecture, Research and Materials). His research interests connect indigenous and traditional material practices to contemporary technologies and issues and he is considered to be a design activist, author, and thought leader within the topics of additive manufacturing, borderwall studies, and earthen architecture. The London Design Museum awarded his creative practice, Rael San Fratello, (with architect Virginia San Fratello), the Beazley Award in 2021 for the design of the year, one of the most prestigious awards in design internationally. In 2014 his practice was named an Emerging Voice by The Architectural League of New York—one of the most coveted awards in North American architecture. In 2016 Rael San Fratello was also awarded the Digital Practice Award of Excellence by the The Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA). Rael earned his Master of Architecture degree at Columbia University in the City of New York, where he was the recipient of the William Kinne Memorial Fellowship. Previous academic and professional appointments include positions at the Southern California Institute for Architecture (SCI_arc), Clemson University, the University of Arizona, and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Rotterdam. His work has been published widely, including the New York Times, Wired, MARK, Domus, Metropolis Magazine, PRAXIS, Thresholds, Log, Public Art Review, and recognized by several institutions including La Biennale di Venezia, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, LACMA, Storefront for Art and Architecture, the Center for Fine Arts, Netherlands, For Freedoms, the YBCA 100, and included in the  permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, The London Design Museum, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the FRAC Centre, and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya.

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Maria De Los Angeles

Maria De Los Angeles is a Mexican-born, American artist who addresses ideas of migration, belonging, and identity through her drawing, painting, printmaking, and wearable sculptures. She holds an MFA from Yale School of Art (2015), a BFA from Pratt Institute (2013), and an Associate Degree from Santa Rosa Junior College (2010). Maria was awarded the Blair Dickinson Memorial Prize by Yale University (2015) for her artwork and her role within her community. She has been an Artist in Residence at MASS MOCA, El Museo del Barrio, LACMA, Monira Foundation, and Schneider Museum of Art within Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University. Solo exhibitions at Schneider Museum of Art (2018 & 2019), the Museum of Sonoma County (2019), and Goggleworks (2022).Group exhibitions at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, LACMA, Self Help Graphics, and the San Diego Mesa College. Her artwork is on view in We the People: The Radical Notions of Democracy at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Public murals include Glen Ellen, California (2021), Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital (2022), and an upcoming mural for Santa Rosa Junior College (2023). Her artwork is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Sonoma County, the Green Family Art Foundation, the Marcus Collection, San Diego Mesa College, Smith College, and the Jack Leissring Studio. De Los Angeles was a faculty at Pratt Institute, Fashion Institute of Technology, and Southern Oregon University. She is currently a full-time Critic and Assistant Director of Painting and Printmaking at the Yale School of Art. Her work has been featured in Hyperallergic, Artnet, New York Magazine, HelloGiggles, and The Observer.  Instagram: @delosangelesart

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Beatriz Soto

Beatriz Soto is an interdisciplinary artist, environmental activist and designer that has been at the intersection of community building, social justice and working towards a stable climate for the past two decades. She is an award winning architect with a LEED certification, who has worked on a variety of high performance and sustainable projects; Beatriz has also developed and led professional and workforce development workshops in US and Mexico, that center climate and environmental justice. She is former Director of Defiende Nuestra Tierra for The Wilderness Workshop, co-founding member of Voces Unidas de las Montañas, and is currently the Director of Protegete, a statewide initiative from Conservation Colorado, who has the mission to elevate Latino driven solutions to protect our lands, water, air and fight for environmental and climate justice. In 2021 Beatriz was appointed to serve on the Colorado Environmental Justice Action Task Force representing Disproportionately Impacted Communities in Congressional District 3, the recommendations set forward by the taskforce have currently been endorsed by Gov. Polis and will begin to be implemented across state agencies. She was also a proud member of the US delegation at the World Forestry Congress in Seoul, South Korea in 2022, where her work elevating diverse and minority voices in conservation and the future of the US mountain west resort economies was shared at a global scale. She is currently representing the environmental community in the Resources Advisory Commision for the Northwest region for the Bureau of Land Management.

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