Rebeca Mendez
Rebeca Méndez (she/they – Mexico City, 1962) is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, and educator examining reciprocal relationships and environmental justice in a multi-species world amid climate change, mass extinction, and a ravaging extractivist society. Her fieldwork has taken her to vulnerable environments and communities in the Arctic and threatened ecologies in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Méndez’s diverse works are driven by her interest in perception and embodied experience and they develop within science and art and manifest as immersive installations of video and sound, film and performance. Bridging scientific and indigenous perspectives, Méndez has collaborated with significant science institutions and with Acjachemen, Tongva, Ohlone, and Zapotec communities. Her works have been exhibited extensively throughout the world including at the 1st Gangwon International Triennale 2021 (Gangwon-do, Korea) and the 55th Venice Biennial, and are in permanent collections, including at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Oaxaca, and El Paso Museum of Art. Méndez has received significant recognition including a California Community Foundation Fellowship; The Sally and Don Lucas Artists Residency; CODAaward in Public Spaces; inclusion into the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; induction into the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) and the One Club Creative Hall of Fame; recipient of the Medal of AIGA and the National Design Award in Communication Design. Her work was showcased on the PBS NewsHour, Art and Culture Series CANVAS. She earned a BFA, an MFA, and received the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts from Art Center College of Design. She lectures internationally, is a tenured professor in the Department of Design Media Arts,