Artists + Practitioners + Organizations

Meet the artists, practitioners, and organizations! Far South/Border North awarded funding to support artists and cultural practitioners working in disciplines from performing arts, visual arts, music, film and media, and literature to multidisciplinary and socially engaged forms.

Far South/Border North Round I Grant Recipients

Our Round I grant recipients include about 60 artists and cultural practitioners from San Diego and Imperial counties. Round I grant recipients began developing their campaigns in June 2023, and are now implemented those campaigns through May 2024.

Sergio "Takito" Ojeda

Imperial County

Sergio Ojeda is a spray paint artist dedicated to changing the narratives of the binational communities of Imperial Valley and Mexicali. He was born and raised in the borderlands with a bohemian lifestyle and a cosmic perspective gained from an education focused on research, science, and psychology.

Olivia Quintanilla

San Diego County

Olivia Arlene Quintanilla is a Chamoru educator born and raised in San Diego. Her cultural practice focuses on intergenerational public ethnic studies programming that centers on civic and community engagement. She organizes workshops and events that use culture, such as food, music, dance, poetry, art, and storytelling, as a catalyst for connection, awareness, and social change. A first-generation college student alumni of San Diego community colleges, San Diego State University, and the University of California San Diego, she is now an Ethnic Studies professor at MiraCosta Community College in Oceanside.

Jose "Eduardo Kintero" Quintero

Imperial County

Jose Eduardo Quintero is an artist who has worked in many mediums, including large-format metal and ceramic sculpture, curatorship and museography of exhibitions, development, and dissemination of visual arts programs, and art workshops helping different groups of people from adults to children with special needs. He's worked for the Autonomous University of Baja California, the Baja California Government, Casa de Cultura Mexicali, and the City of Calexico Recreation Department, among other places, focusing on murals,  exhibits, cultural programs, art activities in public spaces.

Eric "EV93" Vargas

Imperial County

Eric Vargas, aka EV9thr33, lives and works in the Imperial Valley. He is passionate about creating and producing music and has produced, mixed, and mastered thousands of solo and collaborative projects for over ten years. He has recently expanded to work with more genres and networks with different outlets such as record labels and A&Rs. Since opening a studio in the area, Vargas has also pursued his artist development.

Haydee "Betty Bangs" Juarez

San Diego County

"Betty Bangs is a queer Chicana artist, working with the medium of painting in acrylic and murals, but also sewing and DJ-ing. Bangs paints shapes representing women of all shapes & sizes. She has painted murals in San Diego and Mexico City and assisted in painting four murals in Chicano Park. Of utmost importance to her is representing her cultura & lifestyle through her work.

Ernesto "Pisado" Gonzalez

San Diego County

A transborder artist, Ernesto Gonzalez is activated by the cultural energy surrounding his community of South San Diego, acknowledging that his practice takes place on Kumeyaay land. Motivated to create meaningful change, he has dedicated his career to building a [digital] voice to broadcast his community's need for justice, equality, and inclusion. Gonzalez is passionate about filmmaking, music, and new media art, and he uses these mediums as anchors in his artistic process and exploration. Through his work as Executive Director of BLK Box Gallery & Creative Center in the borderlands of San Ysidro, he works to engage and support artists through community-centered programming. He received a Bachelor's in Visual Arts: Media (film) from the University of California San Diego and a Master's in Film from San Diego State University. His work as a creative is inspired, informed, and fueled by his Mexican heritage, family, struggles, blessings, and community.

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Far South/Border North Round II Grant Recipients

Our Round II grant recipients include 18 San Diego and Imperial County organizations. In fall 2023, they hired artists and cultural practitioners and began working alongside them to develop their campaigns, and implemented them through August 2024.

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