The Charla Fund

The CHARLA Fund, part of the Mazorca Initiative, offers a flexible and open-ended format that enables artist-recipients to have creative, challenging, supportive, and unconventional conversations with fellow artists and other artworkers and between the field of visual art and other disciplines. 

For the initiative’s first round, proposals were solicited by nomination from arts leaders located across the United States and Puerto Rico. Proposals were then selected based on the recommendations of an external advisory board comprising world-class artists, scholars, and curators who share a commitment to enhancing equity in the art world and represent a range of perspectives based on their diverse art practices, areas of specializations, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and regions they live and work.

  • Vick Quezada

    Vick Quezada

    CHARLA: Relics of an Inquisition Is an art show and talk about the works by Vick Quezada. The works queer the archaeological through hybrid forms and aesthetics. Inspired by the guiding principles of Aztec Philosophy, Quezada integrates the theory of interconnected matter and how it’s embedded in the cosmos, planet earth, ecology, and all lifeforms. Through Rasquache…

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  • Evelyn Rydz

    Evelyn Rydz

    CHARLA: Recetas de Casa, a healing recipe exchange from and about home In this multi-generational event, participants will exchange recipes and stories about the people, places, and food that form their connections to home. Participants will gather online to share the dishes they are creating to bring comfort, nourishment, and healing during these challenging and…

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  • Daisy Quezada Ureña

    Daisy Quezada Ureña

     CHARLA: Untitled (Accumulation) This project intends to amplify conversation through sculpting clay forms that reflect a presence in New Mexico’s social and cultural spaces, in dialogue with the national. Engaging with the youth across underrepresented areas of Northern New Mexico and immersing our hands in earth, we seek innovative knowledge that reflects and hopes to…

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  • Lionel Cruet

    Lionel Cruet

    CHARLA: banasta: residencia artística banasta: artistic residency, is a program organized by artists and cultural managers aimed to generate a healthy and safe community of creators in the arts, within the Puerto Rican and NYC context in dialogue with the artistic scene abroad.

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  • Angel Lartigue

    Angel Lartigue

    CHARLA: Cenote A conversation between visual artists Angel Lartigue, Tere Garcia and poets Matt Flores and Roberto Tejada on the recent artistic project, Cenote, a hybrid of art residency, collective and network based within the Texas town of Falfurrias. The conversation addresses issues of migration, the relationship between archaeology and forensics, and humanitarian work with…

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  • Kasey-Lynn Rodriguez

    Kasey-Lynn Rodriguez

    CHARLA: Parenting/Aesthetic My Charla proposal was to explore other parents who are creatives and how they balance the way they live, work and take care of their children. I spoke to Brian “B*Star” Ramos through a Zoom call about our different backgrounds and mediums to discuss what parenting looks like and how we can use…

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  • Cynthia Velásquez

    Cynthia Velásquez

    CHARLA: Hit Me Up I partnered with Chicanx artist, Aarum Alatorre of Pacoima Techno, in a performance piece that centers on belonging, discomfort, and adjusting to post-art school life. Our living performance piece takes the shape of a phone call accompanied with visuals (foto and film). Our aim is to share our deep friendship that…

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  • Salvador Jiménez-Flores and Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy

    Salvador Jiménez-Flores and Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy

    CHARLA: Conversation about Collaboration In this charla between Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy and Salvador Jimenez-Flores, they chat about visibility, representation, education, mentorship, and the importance of creatives being fairly compensated in art spaces. Angelik and Salvador have collaborated on many projects including multiple exhibitions that aim to celebrate BIPOC artists working in ceramics. For example,Sleight of Handbrought…

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  • Stephanie Concepcion Ramirez

    Stephanie Concepcion Ramirez

    CHARLA: flowers flowers is a single-channel video constructed of conversations happening with the self and shared between two artists. An inner dialogue of these two artists working, making, feeling, experiencing, thinking and living in the world today. These audio recordings were recorded in a month’s time span and shared with one another without edits or…

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