Invited Guests

Alex Dorfsman (Mexico City)

Alex lives and works in Mexico City. He completed his degree in Fine Arts at the National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving “La Esmeralda” in Mexico City. He has had solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group exhibitions in Mexico and abroad. He is a member of the National System of Creators of FONCA. He earned a scholarship, Program of Promotion of Cultural Projects and Joint Ventures FONCA 2007-2008. He was a fellow of the Young Creators of the FONCA program generation 2005-2006. He received the Latin American Photography Award Purificación García, 2011.

Karina Juárez  (Oaxaca, Mexico)

Karina attended the Seminary of Contemporary Photography at the Center of the Image in Oaxaca in 2012, as well as various workshops at the Manuel Alvarez Bravo Photographic Center and the Center for the Arts in San Augustín (CaSa) in Oaxaca. During 2012, under the Factory of Images program as part of the French Institute for Latin America (IFAL), she won a scholarship for an artist residency at the Ecole Nationale Superieure de Ia Photographie in Arles, France. In 2013 she received the scholarship FONCA for an artist residency in Land Salzburg, Austria. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions in Mexico, Belgium, Brazil, Spain, Ecuador and France.

Her work has been selected in numerous competitions and exhibitions such as: XV Biennial of Photography of the Centro de la Imagen 2012, Contemporary Photography Competition Mexico 2012, receiving the first honorable mention, and the eighth in Biennial 2011 Puebla de los Ángeles. She was nominated by the region of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean to participate in the JoopSwartMasterclass 2012 organized by WorldPressPhoto. Shee received the scholarship Fonca, Young Artists in the period 2011-2012 and is currently a fellow during the period 2014-2015. En 2015 she was nominated for the prize and PrixPictet and the Foam Paul Huf Award.

Eduardo Lozano Murillo (Tijuana, Baja California)

Eduardo received a Bachelor of Engineering in Digital Graphic Design, and has done various workshops and seminars related to management, curation and criticism of contemporary art and gender studies. He was curatorial assistant at the Tijuana Cultural Center Foundation Benjamin Serrano. He has participated in the curatorial process of several national and international exhibitions in Mexico, the US and the UK. He works in the College of the Northern Border in Coordination of Communication and currently serves on the curatorial project team SHAPED IN MEXICO. He is co-founder and co-director of the project Periférica, a program dedicated to the generation, distribution and preservation of content related to the visual arts in Tijuana, Mexico. His work explores the relationship between art, new technologies, identity and gender.

Christian Zúñiga Méndez (Tijuana, Baja California)

Christian is a Professor of the Faculty of Arts at the UABC and the Universidad Iberoamericana. Workshop at the Casa de las Ideas and the Center for Writing and Literary Appreciation (UABC). Taltecan member. As a writer, seeks to reconstruct the last moments that only is accesible through small evidence and testimonies, objects and documents. As a photographer, his gaze is directed to different aspects of social interactions, the uses of space and the construction of social subjectivities.

Heriberto Yépez (Tijuana, Baja California)

Heriberto has authored more than twenty books of novels, short stories, poetry and essays. He studied a degree in philosophy and a master’s degree in psychotherapy. Among his books are the novels A.B.U.R.T.O and On the other side; his books of essays, The Empire of Neo-memory and Against Tele-Vision; and his collections of poems, For a Poetry before the Paleolithic and after Propaganda and The Organ of Laughter. He has translated the aphorisms of William Blake into Spanish, is editor and translator of the poetry of Jerome Rothenberg and Charles Bernstein, and the English work of José Vasconcelos and Ulises Carrión. He has been a professor at the Autonomous University of Baja California (Faculty of Arts) and is currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of California, Berkeley. He defines himself as a writer of Another Mexico and the post-United States.

Katia Sepúlveda Barra (Santiago de Chile)

Katia’s work began to be known massively in Chile when she won the “Best Post-porno Video Art” award with her video Beauty v/s Beauty in the Dildo Rosa Festival in 2011. Headquartered in Cologne since 2004, she began to develop her work taking many of the issues currently under discussion in European feminism and beginning to take shape in Chile, especially in regards to the relations between feminism and sexuality, addressing concepts like trans-feminism, transgender, post-porn and post-sexual; approaching the phenomenon of queer theory and closely following the thinking of prominent thinkers like Beatriz Preciado and Judith Butler who try to redefine conditions of sexuality and gender. Premises begin questioning the normative heterosexuality, the dominant cultural and social system, especially the roles determined by the relationships between the masculine and the feminine.

Jorge Luis Osiris Arias (Cuernavaca, Morelos)

Jorge has a Bachelor’s and Master of Arts from the Autonomous University of Baja California, University of Brasilia and the University of Barcelona. Since 2012 he has been professor of critical theory and history of the image in the Autonomous University of Baja California. His work has been exhibited in Mexico, Brazil and Cuba. His work belongs to public collections, such as the Historical and Ethnographic Museum of Caborca (Sonora) and the Institute of Culture of Baja California. Currently working with the multidisciplinary appropriation of images rescued from different contexts.

Mayra Huerta (Orizaba, Veracruz)

Mayra studied a degree in Fine Arts at the University of Guanajuato. She received a PhD in Visual Arts and Intermedia at the Faculty of San Carlos at the Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain. Her work is developed between photography and video creation, addressing the themes of landscape construction and exploration of the city. She has received the following scholarships: PECDA (2013-2014) Creator with experience in Visual Arts; Research residence at the Faculty of San Carlos in the UPV (2013 and 2010); Young Creators 2008-2009 FONCA; FECDA: Photography and Installation (GTO 2006.); Encuentro FotoGuanajuato comprehensive scholarship 2006; Artistic residency at Vermont Studio Center (Alternate MexAm Award) 2005; Vermont, USA.

Her work from the series Study of Found Objects has been in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santiago de Chile since 2011.

She is currently a Professor of the Faculty of Arts at the Autonomous University of Baja California, Tijuana, where she belongs to the faculty: “Image and Creation” which proposes the processes of creation in art, with the goal of creating an artistic object aimed at the dissemination and understanding of contemporary art practices.

Rubén G. Marrufo (Mexicali, Baja California)

Rubén is a visual artist who lives and works in Mexicali, Baja California. His work has been presented in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Berlin, Munich, London, Mexicali and Tijuana. His work explores the creation of new narratives through experimentation with different formats: Super8, digital and analog video, addressing the feelings of characters that bring them to action, where their stories are not the main focus.

Adriana Trujillo (Tijuana, Baja California)

Adriana is a director and producer. Master in Documentary Film at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and graduated in Communication at UABC. Her work has been part of various festivals like the International Film Festival of Morelia, DOCSDF, HMFF Los Angeles and Australia, among others. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Latin American Art in Los Angeles, gallery FACT (Liverpool), Art Center Mediterranean (Spain) and the Habitat Centre (New Delhi). Her recent productions include: TheArcades Media Project (2014), Pulse SPOOKY (2014). She is the founder and Artistic Director of BorDocs Documentary Forum and editor of the book BorDocs and Borders: Documentary Film in northern Mexico. Member of the National System of Art Creators 2015-2018 part of the National Fund for Arts and Culture.

M.Guillermo Echeveste R. (Tijuana, Baja California) 

M.Guillermo is an architect (I.T.T) and artist (UABC). Has has been included in individual and group exhibitions in Mexico and Argentina. School graduate with merit in the 2009 – 2014 generation of the Faculty of Arts UABC. He has received various support and scholarships such as PECDA 2013-2014 (ICBC-CONACULTA); Scholarship Wings to Fly (UABC); and the Mexican Academy of Sciences in the Summer Research Program (Faculty of Architecture UNAM). He has been involved with several artist collectives such as ContraCultura menor (1993-1995) Multiverse (2011) and ThinkThank USA-Mexico (2014). He also studied Musuem and Curatorial studies at the University of the Argentine Social Museum in Buenos Aires Argentina and currently serves as head of Museology at the Tijuana Cultural Center. He is a history, photography and film buff.

Mónica Arreola (Tijuana, Baja California) 

Mónica is an architect and visual artist. She studied her Master’s in Modern and Contemporary Art at Casa Lamm, and currently directs 206 Contemporary Art, the an art space established in the city of Tijuana dedicated to dialogue and dissemination of art, exhibitions, workshops and specific discussions on the situation of contemporary art.

In 2014 she won first place in the “IX Biennial of Photography of Baja California”; in 2008 first place in the “Sixth Biennial of Photography of Baja California”; in 2006, second place in the “IV International Biennial Banner”; Honorable mention in the “Fourth Biennial of Photography of Baja California”; in 2002, first place in the “Spectacular Mexico Border Bridge” competition for Insite; and first place in the photo competition of the magazine The Tempest.

Some of her images have appeared in Mexican magazines as La Tempestad, Tierra Adentro, Caviar Izquierda y Origina, as well as in the Italian publication ZOOM and Fisheye in Spain. She has been part of several exhibitions in Monterrey, Guanajuato, Puebla, Mexico City, Tijuana, San Diego, Washington and Madrid. Some of her photographs and installation art pieces are part of the collection of the Tijuana Cultural Center, the Cultural Institute of Baja California and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

Hugo Lugo (Los Mochis, Sinaloa)

Hugo’s work has been exhibited in cities such as Caracas, Amsterdam, Paris, Mexico City, Bogota, Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro and Singapore, among others. His awards include the Young Artists Scholarship FONCA, National Youth Art Award, and most recently the acquisition prize in the Painting Biennial Rufino Tamayo Museum of Contemporary Art.

He has developed his work in several disciplines, mainly drawing, painting and photography. Sculpture, mural, and installation have also given his work an opportunity to explore new dimensions of meaning.

He likes to think of his work as a serious game between the points of intersection of drawing, painting and photography. He’s interested in the formal aspects of language and representation, objects as potential carriers of meanings, and the strange situations that provoke astonishment; particularly those experiences that we face that are hard to explain. Usually, those situations that he represents involve some ethical dilemma, a ‘do or not do “, not as a moralistic approach, but rather about the complex human condition.

Gabriel Boils Terán (Cd. Victoria, Tamaulipas)

Gabriel is a visual artist who lives and works in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. He studied Visual Arts at the National School of Fine Arts en la UNAM. His work includes different disciplines; installation, images, objects and videos. He has exhibited individually and collectively, in Mexico and abroad. He has been a fellow of Stimulus Program for Artistic Creation of Baja California 2008/2009. Acquisition Award at the Twelfth Biennial Northwest. Honorable Mention in the Biennial of Standards 2006 and the Fourth Biennial looks. His work is part of the FEMSA collection of contemporary art from the collection of Tijuana Cultural Center, Art Museum of Sinaloa and CODET Foundation.

Miriam García (Tijuana, Baja California)

Miriam is a university professor, researcher and bridge builder between contemporary history, cultural dissemination and art. Explorer of narrative, poetry and political culture. Se studied history, social science, written culture and neuro-arts. Moon-woman at the end of the left clavicle, oneironaut, aquamarine, misaligned.

Roberto Armocida (Italia)

Roberto is an italian photographer and journalist based in Mexico since 2009. He has worked in Central America with the international agency Reuters, covering the conflict and the peace process in the region. He has been a correspondent for the Mexican daily Excelsior and Reforma from Italy. He has collaborated with major Italian newspapers and weeklies, which Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, L’Espresso, Panorama, La Stampa, Il Messaggero, among others.

In 2011 he was awarded third prize in the category FINI documentary and photojournalism, with the report “The City Threat”.

His personal photographic work covers topics related to our social realities, whether urban than rural, such as marginalization, poverty, immigration, discrimination, human rights, gender violence, secrecy, religion, indigenous peoples and minorities. He currently lives in Tijuana and works as a freelance photographer and photographer correspondent for El Universal.

Itzel Martínez del Cañizo (Tijuana, Baja California)

Itzel is a director, producer, & photographer. She has been developing collaborative documentary projects since 2000, exploring different working methods and audiovisual possibilities. Her documentaries have been shown at several international film festivals and festivals of contemporary art in several countries. Her most recent documentary Home backwards (2014) was premiered at the International Film Festival of Morelia, is part of the Ambulante documentary festival and continues its tour for several festivals in Mexico, Spain, Germany, Italy, Argentina and United States. This film has received honors and awards such as the Alert-Alert prize, Pantalla de Cristal and was nominated for The Goddess of Silver in the category of documentary film by the national cinematographic press. She directs her own creation label Cuarto Propio, in Tijuana; is Founder and Director of Documentary Programming Forum BorDocs on the northern border of Mexico; has taught at the Autonomous University of Baja California and the Universidad Iberoamericana; FONCA scholarship recipient and winner of development projects IMCINE and FORPOCINE, FOECA, PACMYC, among others.

Jaime Beechum (Goleta, California)

Louis Hock (Los Angeles, California)

Louis is an artist and filmmaker living in Encinitas, California. He is currently a Professor Emeritus of the University of California, San Diego Visual Arts Department.He received his BA degree from the University of Arizona in 1970 and his MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1973. His artwork – films, video tapes, and media installations – have been exhibited in solo shows at numerous national and international art institutions including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Las Fotos Project (Los Angeles, California)

Las Fotos Project was founded in 2010 by Los Angeles-based photographer Eric V. Ibarra after seeing a need for teenage girls throughout Los Angeles to have a skill that could help build their confidence and self-esteem. In March of 2011, Las Fotos Project became a project of Community Partners, a 501(c)3 organization which accelerates ideas into action to advance the public good. Las Fotos Project has since worked with girls throughout Southern California, and has developed partnerships with national and international nonprofit organizations and schools to expand the movement of empowering Latina youth through photography and self-expression.

Jesse Lerner (Los Angeles, California)

Jesse is a filmmaker, writer, and curator. His short films Magnavox (2006), T.S.H. (2004) and Native (1991, Scott Sterling) and feature films Away The Stone (2013, with Sandra Rozental), Atomic Sublime (2010), The American Egypt (2001), Ruins (1999), and Frontierlandia (1995, Ruben Ortiz-Torres) have won prizes is festivals in the United States, Latin America and Japan, and have been presented at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Sydney Biennale, and the Rotterdam, Los Angeles and Sundance Film Festivals among others. The National Cinematheque of Mexico and Anthology Film Archives in New York have presented retrospectives of his documentaries. As a curator, he has organized exhibitions for the Robert Flaherty Seminar, Manuel Alvarez Bravo Photographic Center of Oaxaca, the Museum of Latin American Art in California, the Palace Museum of Fine Arts in Mexico and the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao. He has published several articles on film, photo and art books as the impact of modernity, The Maya of Modernism and F is for Phony: Fake Documentary and Truth’s Undoing. He currently teaches at the Intercollegiate Media Studies program of the Claremont Colleges in California.

Naomi Uman (Ukraine)

Naomi is an experimental filmmaker most well known for hand-processing both her own footage and found footage. Her documentary films have been exhibited widely at the Sundance and Rotterdam International Film Festivals, The New York Film Festival, and the San Francisco International Film festival among others; she has also screened her work at The Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney, The Smithsonian, and Mexico City’s Museo de Arte Moderno. She has received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Guggenheim Foundation, The Mexico/U.S.A. Fund for Culture, and the Bank of Austria. She teaches at the Fine Art Museum in Mexico City, leading workshops in handmade filmmaking. She received an MFA in Filmmaking from CalArts in 1998.

Elaine Cromie (Denver, Colorado)