San Jose
Queer and Undocumented: The Art and Activism of Coming Out, and Coming Out
June is Immigrant Heritage Month as well as Refugee Awareness Month. In solidarity and support, we will run a series of artist profiles and features this month about the experiences of undocumented…
5 Questions with Creative Exchange: What we have learned from our artists
Since August 2016, Creative Exchange has been asking each of our Artists With Impact a series of five questions, which appear at the end of every profile. We did this to create a thread of continuity…
Public Transformation hits the road
Two months ago, I had no idea that I was going to buy a school bus and travel across the country interviewing rural-based artists - I had no idea that I would need to learn how to insure a converted…
Grupo Folklorico Los Laureles conserves traditional Mexican folklorico dance and culture
Grupo Folklorico Los Laureles in San Jose is a dance academy and professional dance company co-founded by Ashley Lopez-Gonzalez and Cesar Gonzalez. They started in the summer of 2007, teaching…
San Jose's MACLA engages a multicultural community
In early 2016, San Jose’s Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana (MACLA) opened the exhibition “Custom Lives: Rasquache Renaissance.” The show exhibited colorful, cartoon-like sculptures of…
Teatro Nahual is the Bay Area's first and only entirely Spanish-language theatre group
When Verónica Meza, founder and artistic director of Teatro Nahual, moved to Los Angeles from Mexico City in 2001, she couldn't find any options for Spanish language theatre anywhere. The same thing…
Cado Dos Santos shares his Brazilian culture with the world through his world music
Ricardo "Cado" Dos Santos plays Brazilian music, but it's not the kind of Brazilian music you might be imagining. This is not bossa nova or samba; Cado's music is soulful, gentle, guitar-driven…
Teatro Visión celebrates Chicano culture and identities through theater
San Jose's Teatro Visión is a 31-year-old Chicano theater company. Co-founder and Artistic Director Elisa Marina Alvarado explains, "We use that term because the Chicano movement,…
Empire Seven Studios breaks down the barriers to putting art on walls
Empire Seven Studios in San Jose started because Juan Carlos Araujo wanted his own art studio. He envisioned the space at 525 N. 7th Street as his own personal art space, but…
Sam Rodriguez explores cultural hybridity and identity through a plurality of mediums
San Jose artist Sam Rodriguez doesn't fit neatly into any one particular category. You can't look at his body of work and say, "Oh, he's a graffiti muralist," or "Oh, he makes mixed-media pop art,"…
Pilar Agüero-Esparza is an artist, teacher, and mother who explores themes of labor and domesticity
It is natural for artists to continuously return back to recurring themes in their work throughout their career, and Pilar Agüero-Esparza is no exception. Agüero-Esparza is a visual artist based in…
Nikiko Masumoto cultivates connections between the art of food and farming and stories of place
Nikiko Masumoto is a farmer, and also an artist. Contrary what people might assume about these two different aspects of her life, they are not at odds with each other. In fact, each one informs the…
Of corn and men: Yvonne Escalante explores themes of social and environmental justice through corn
Corn: it's a rather pedestrian agricultural product. Chances are, you probably don't think too much about corn as you go about your daily life. You buy ears of corn for your summer barbecues. You…
ZERO1 is where art and technology converge
ZERO1: The Art & Technology Network in San Jose is where art meets technology to shape the future. It is a nonprofit art and technology organization with the mission of providing a platform for…
A picture is worth a thousand words: Jai Tanju gives a personal touch to digital works
If you scroll through photographer Jai Tanju's tumblr page, you'll find exactly the kinds of images you would expect to see from someone who got his start in skateboarding photography: boards in…