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JUANA VALDES
“REST ASHORE: EXPLORATIONS ON RACE, TRANSNATIONALISM, GENDER, LABOR, CLASS.”
Presented on: Tuesday, Oct 27th, 2020
Immigration / migration are constantly in the news, and even if we were born in the United States, our parents or grandparents likely were not. Juana Valdes’ work deals with these realities on a global scale. She'll talk about her past works in many mediums, exploring the impact of global movement of people and products, but will focus on “Rest Ashore”, her recent exhibition at Locust Projects, . You’ll be able to see it in depth, as she’ll share photos and some of the many archival news clips she’s been able to obtain. The exhibit reexamines the Cuban migration experience over the past 60 years, relating it to the current and ongoing global refugee crisis. It features a multi- channel video that powerfully evokes the experience of being at sea in a flimsy craft.

While this project differs significantly from Valdes’ past work, it continues her thematic explorations of the sea, ocean, rivers, and “bodies of water”, which have always played a significant role in her practice and shifted the way in which she perceives and re-imagines the Caribbean.


Juana Valdes uses printmaking, photography, video, hand-crafted fabric, ceramics, and site-specific sculptural installations to explore issues of race, transnationalism, gender, labor, and class. Functioning as an archive, Valdes’ work analyzes and decodes experiences of migration as a person of Afro Caribbean heritage. These works have been featured in numerous group and solo exhibitions in the United States, the Caribbean, and Europe. She is also an Associate Professor of Printmaking at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and is represented in Miami by Spinello Projects.

Born in Cuba and raised in Miami, her work balances a combination of atmospheric storytelling and insistent feminist inquiry, brought to life through a thread of rural mysticism. A persistent interest in the semiotics of commercial and mass produced imagery animates and fuses the elements of her art. Her work projects the persona of an artist who is apparently part shaman, part urbane anthropologist, engagingly and allusively translating the details of her life history and wide ranging visual interests.

Her exhibition “An Inherent View of the World” was acquired in full by the Pérez Art Museum, Miami and was featured in a recent exhibition, Polyphonic: Celebrating PAMM’s Fund for African American Art from February 7 – August 9, 2020.

JUANA VALDES' WEB SITE