Draft:Nereida Garcia Ferraz

Nereida Garcia-Ferraz (born 1954) is a Cuban-American multi-disciplinary artist whose practice includes painting, drawings, photography, video, sculpture, and social art projects exploring personal narratives, identity, history, nature and the physical world.

Her work has been exhibited by numerous museums and institutions such as the Modern Art in New York, The Art and Culture Center of Hollywood and is part of many private collections such as the Harold Washington Library in Chicago Some important recent exhibitions include Profile Booth Chicago Art Expo 2024 , De Noche los Sueños, 40 years survey at Spinello Projects , "Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration" at MoMA PS1 and "Radical Conventions: Cuban American Art from The 1980s" at the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami , “You Know Who You Are” at El Espacio 23 and the "South Florida Cultural Consortium Exhibition" at MOCA, North Miami, Florida.

She co-produced with Kate Horsefield the video documentary Ana Mendieta: Fuego de Tierra about the life and work of Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta. The film, awarded as Best Video Documentary, National Latino Film and Video Festival in 1988, and is in the collection of many museums, libraries and universities such as MOMA , University of Berkeley Library , UM Library , Carnegie Mellon University Libraries , NYU and many others. is distributed by Women Make Movies and the Video Data Bank.

Biography
Born in Guanabacoa, Havana in 1954, Garcia-Ferraz emigrated to the United States in 1971 with her father, older sister and little brother. It took the family years before they were allowed to depart Cuba. Her mom and little sister reunited with them later on in Chicago, where they decided to establish themselves. Her father, a musician, wanted to live in a place where he could feel and hear music. The night they arrived he went out looking for a job and found one playing piano at one of the many jazz clubs in downtown.

In Chicago she had several jobs to support the family, but she wanted to study art so she created a portfolio of drawings which granted her a scholarship at the School of the Art Institute in 1976. During her time at the School of Arts she started painting large pieces of paper with oil often writing texts in Spanish perhaps as a way to express and not to forget who she was and where she was from.

She obtained a BFA in 1981 in Drawing and Photography but she also took classes on film and independent video. Upon graduation she was awarded the Ryerson Traveling Fellowship. She has also received two National Endowment for the Arts, in 1985, 1986 and the Illinois Art Council Fellowship in 1989 and the Mac Arthur Foundation Media Grant in 1994. ,.

Garcia Ferraz moved to the Bay Area in 1997 where she had a studio in East Oakland. She founded The Photography Program at MACLA, San Jose California in 1998 and in 2000 she was the recipient of The Richard Diebenkorn Teaching Fellowship from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2000 - 2001.

In 2001 she moved to Miami where she co-founded 801 Projects with Angela Valella, an exhibition space where they curated many exhibitions, among others "Imperfect Archives".

From 2011 to 2023 during her residence at the Fountainhead art studios, she worked with educations programs such as Women on the Rise at MOCA of North Miami and Brick by Brick , the award-winning outreach education art program at Pérez Art Museum and at the Idea Lab at BASS Art Museum in Miami. In 2022 she was awarded with the South Florida Visual Arts Consortium Fellowship.

Teaching and Lectures
2024


 * Living, Creating and Aging in Miami: A Showcase and Panel Discussion. Moderated by PAMM Senior Director of Education Marie Vickles

2023

2021 2015
 * An Evening with Ana - A celebration of Ana Mendieta's life and work at Nereida Garcia-Ferraz studio at the Miami Design District
 * District Reads with Rosa Lowinger - A conversation with the miami raised art conservator Rosa Lowinger for the release of Lowinger's book “Dwell Time: A Memoir of Art, Exile, and Repair, Miami design District
 * WOPHA Congress panelist speaker Pérez Art Museum Miami on 18–19 November 2021


 * Nereida Garcia-Ferraz – Visiting Artist Lecture, Santa Fe College

2011-2014


 * Overlapping History. Santa Fe College. 2014 Florida.

Book Covers, Publications, Mentions

 * Democracy and Time in Cuban Thought. The Elusive Present by Maria de los Angeles Torres (Book cover art and Reference in the book)
 * By Heart/De Memoria by Maria de los Angeles Torres (Reference in the book)
 * Becoming Sisters; Women Photography Collectives & Organizations by Aldeide Delgado and Ana Clara Silva (Reference in the book)
 * Latinx Photography in the United States by Elizabeth Ferrer (Reference in the book)
 * Home in Florida. Latinx Writers and the Literature of Uprootedness. (Book cover art) . 2021
 * Bridges to Cuba Puentes a Cuba by Ruth Behar (Book cover art, references within the book, photographies)
 * Razor Wire Women: Prisoners, Activists, Scholars, and Artists (Reference in the book)
 * In Plural America (Reference in Exhibition Catalogue)
 * The Portable Island: Cubans at Home in the World - Page 254