My work generally takes the installation form using constructed pieces, found objects and other materials. Born out of the ephemeral tradition of the Days of the Dead and the sacred home space of the altar, these installations evolved into historical forms of investigation such as libraries and laboratories. These forms are aimed at the issues of cultural justice and aesthetic meaning in the broader Latino community.

Amalia Mesa-Bains (she/her) is an internationally renowned artist, scholar, and curator. Throughout her career, Mesa-Bains has expanded understandings of Latinx artists’ references to spiritual practices and vernacular traditions through her altar installations, articles, and exhibitions, and in 1992; she was awarded a Distinguished Fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation. 

Her work has been shown at institutions such as the Menil Museum, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the New Museum, in NY.  She has also shown in international venues in Mexico, Istanbul, Colombia, Venezuela, Ireland, Sweden, England, France and Spain. In 2018,her work Transparent Migrations, was part of Home— So Different, So Appealing, at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, and in 2013, she recontextualized objects from the collections of the Fowler Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles in New World Wunderkammer. As a cultural critic she has co-authored along with bell hooks, Homegrown: Engaged Cultural Criticism. She co-founded and directed the Visual and Public Art Department at California State University at Monterey Bay where she is now Professor Emerita.  Mesa-Bains’ community work includes board of trustee positions with the Mexican Museum in San Francisco and advisory boards for the Galeria de la Raza, and the Social Public Resource Center in Los Angeles.