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Maria Gaspar (born 1980, Chicago) is an American interdisciplinary artist and educator.

Her works have been exhibited at venues including the Museum of Contemporary Art located in Chicago, Artspace in New Haven, CT , African American Museum, Philadelphia, PA, and many others. Gaspar's work has been written about in Artforum, The Chicago Tribune, Hyperallergic, and many other publications.

Biography
Maria Gaspar was born in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago in 1980. Her mother was a professional clown and later went on to be a community-radio DJ in Little Village called WCYC that was part of the Boys & Girls Club. Gaspar has stated in numerous interviews that her mother's work has deeply influenced her art. She started her public art career painting community murals, and attended Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, which has a strong art department. She moved to New York City to study art, receiving a BFA from Pratt Institute in 2002. In 2009 she received an MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Career
Maria Gaspar is an Assistant Professor of Contemporary Practices at School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Gaspar is the founder and director of The 96 Acres Project, a series of community-engaged, site-responsive art projects that address the impact of the Cook County Jail on Chicago's West Side. The project has received numerous awards including a 2015 Creative Capital Award and a 2016 Robert Rauschenberg Artist as Activist Fellowship.

Notable works

 * Sounds for Liberation, an audio project that examines issues of boundaries and divisions between the New Haven Correctional Facility, the New Haven Armory, and the neighborhood surrounding these two institutions.
 * The 96 Acres Project (2012-Present), which examines the impact of incarceration through artistic interventions at the Cook County Jail located in her native community in Chicago.
 * Brown Brilliance Darkness Matter explored the National Museum of Mexican Art Permanent Collection in dialogue with ephemera from her own personal surroundings. By reproducing, manipulating and preserving materials from history to promotional mementos and images, the work attempts to reimagine new and complex realities for a contemporary cultural identity.
 * On the Border of What is Formless and Monstrous is a composite of sound recordings from inside and outside the Cook County Jail, as well as a video pan of the 25’ jail wall examine the blurry line between the inside and outside of the largest single-site jail in the country.

Awards

 * 2018 Imagining Justice Art Grant
 * 2017 Art Matters Grant
 * 2017 Chamberlain Award for Social Practice at the Headlands Center for the Arts
 * 2016 Robert Rauschenberg Artist as Activist Fellowship
 * 2015 Creative Capital Award
 * 2015 Joan Mitchell Emerging Artist Grant
 * Chicagoan of the Year in the Arts in 2014 by art critic and historian, Lori Waxman
 * 2008 Sor Juana Women of Achievement Award in Art and Activism from the National Museum of Mexican Art