Programs · Past program · 2021

Popul/Arte, Season 1

An artist-scholar residency that merged art, culture and theory to bring scholarship back to the people, with scholar Michael Wilson-Becerril and the Brazilian collective Negráfrica.

Popul/Arte Artist-Scholar Residency banner with portraits of the resident artists and scholar.

At LCAC, we believe art must be at the service of la justicia. The world faces mutually intensifying crises — ecological, social, cultural, political, economic and even spiritual — that demand unprecedented consciousness and collective action.

In response, LCAC launched Popul/Arte, an artist-scholar residency that merges art, culture and theory. Academia can give people the tools to lift their communities through el conocimiento, la creatividad, el arte y la innovación, but it is often financially out of reach and slow to speak clearly to non-specialist audiences. Popul/Arte brings theory back to the people.

Season 1 artists and scholar

The inaugural scholar was Michael Wilson-Becerril, Ph.D., an activist-scholar from Mexico City whose organizing and academic work focuses on political ecologies of violence, resistance and peace in Latin America.

The inaugural artists were Mayara Smith, Camila Parreiras, Daiely Gonçalves, Jéssica Goés and Leticia Moreno of Negráfrica, a Brazilian collective of Black women artists who work in comics, photography, painting, drawing and poetry to investigate identity, race and their own experiences.

Together they explored “Peace and Conflict in Latin America: Violence, Resistance, and Social Justice” in eight workshops on how to make change — from everyday artivism and grassroots organizing to institutional and international change.