Round I Projects
PROJECT
Mobile Bio Art Lab
Mobile Bio Art Lab exposes young people to art and science through inquiry-based experiential learning. Through a series of engagements, students will learn about their local environment and frog habitats undergoing destruction due to global warming. A terrarium constructed in the mobile lab reproduces the Lake Cuyamaca frog habitat, along with actual field audio recordings, video, and photographs, to support the authenticity of a natural habitat. With this biological art installation, de la Torre will facilitate conversations about global warming, identity through the representation of flora and fauna, and human encroachment on local habitats through multimedia and interactive art and science activities. Focusing on outreach to California Healthy Places Index communities, including tribal communities and other impacted communities in more mountainous environments, Mobile Bio Art Lab doubles as a community, civic, and public engagement project with local schools, libraries, cultural centers, and pop-up events. For Far South/Border North, de la Torre is collaborating with artist Ana Ruth Yela Castillo and the Mobile Healing Art Studio. Both mobile studios will convene at specific sites to encourage exploring and contemplating ecological and climatic themes as an integral aspect of holistic well-being.
LEARN ABOUT THE ARTIST + CULTURAL PRACTITIONERS
Armando de la Torre
Armando de la Torre work has a long-time involvement in social justice and outreach projects through visual art and teaching practices. These projects - including participatory events at Bread & Salt and The Front and participation in the Best Practice exhibit "Rosas Y Nopales" - entwine with place, borders, and identities. His works often reflect the dichotomy of the San Diego-Tijuana region in its complex environmental and social problems. He is a multidisciplinary artist who is deeply impacted and shaped by these political and environmental forces, and he has learned to turn this into cultural content, continuing to develop work that can inform a broader narrative of inclusion in the San Diego -Tijuana region.