During 2025, I was the Mass Creativity Artist-in-Residence at The New Children’s Museum in San Diego, CA. During the spring, I worked with the museum staff to host six workshops with community organizations for families and children across San Diego County. The theme of the program Rooted Futures was inspired by the speculative fiction work of Octavia Butler, and used nature, piñatas, and textiles to imagine more just, joyful, and inclusive futures grounded in identity, culture, and community. The season culminated in a grand celebration on Mass Creativity Day, with music and dance performances, food vendors, and community art displays.
We designed piñatas as memory vessels, which held our dreams for the future inside, hopefully a time capsule for the children who created them.
We created a collaborative tapestry installation, using fabric and a set of stamps designed by me, using animals and plants meant to inspire resilience and adaptation. We made one panel per workshop and united them during Mass Creativity Day.
We created zines, answering questions such as What will you carry to the future? What animals and plants do you learn from? What do you want to learn for the future?
For Mass Creativity Day, the museum team and I created large-scale piñatas modeled after the ones created by the community and wheatpasted the animal drawings that inspired the season!
