You Belong Here is honored to invite Famo Musa, a Fellow of the Civil Liberties Fellowship sponsored by The AJA Project, as a featured artist in a city wide group installation.
About the Showcase: Fragments of Memories
For my final piece, I will be broadcasting an audio of my mother telling her story into a room that has a bed with her fabrics. The bed will have four pillows with pillowcases that she designs. The exhibition will include a slideshow of the images from an old photo album of my family and also images from the archive that inspiration of where my project ide came from. This project is also unique because it is for my community, they never see their stories or culture in a public setting, this is an opportunity for them to see something different that they can relate to. My community is overlooked a lot and many still don’t know much about it and I took it upon
To learn more about Famo’s journey in creating this showcase, visit the blog.
About the Artist
Famo Musa was born in Somalia and raised in Kenya. She is a photographer and a Youth Organizer with the Global ARC. She is one of the co-founders of City Heights Youth for Change (CHYFC), a youth-led organization, advocating for youth in City Heights. Famo is a community leader that has been active in her community for the past 10 years, she advocates for youth and helps parents who are not familiar with the educational system. She also works as a Teaching Artist at the AjA Project and does Poetry and Creative writing on the side. She is currently going to University of California San Diego for Literature in writing. Famo has been a photographer for the past ten years, she does documentary and portrait photography with the emphasis of preserving memories within her Community
Famo’s showcase will run from
February 10th - 16th, 2021, and will be COVID and social distance friendly, by being viewable outdoors, with looped outdoor audio, and looped projected images.
February 13th - Virtual Showcase, (which includes two other installations by Civil Liberties fellows) register below:
Additional Showcases that are part of The Civil Liberties Fellowship
MENDING - Natalia Quintero
Natalia Quintero was born in 1985 in San Diego, California and currently lives in San Diego. As Chicano Activists her parents encouraged her to be outspoken, expressive through art and to live an optimistic life. Through art Natalia discovered she could overcome adversity, encourage change and bring people together. Becoming a teacher was the catalyst for promoting positive change in her community. Additionally, while mothering 3 young children Natalia has gained the perspective and passion to generate a positive impact on her community through public art installations.
Natalia continues to work on her HOPE campaign. A series of painted signs put in public places throughout her community. Her goal is to empower her community by spreading positivity. She is inspired by her late Father who lived a life deeply rooted in optimism. Her current sewing project is guided by the Internment of Japanese Americans during WW2 and the erased stories of minority women. Through sewing Natalia examines the social spaces and narratives that continue to exclude women and their stories.Through Art Natalia continues to investigate ways to empower her community and spread optimism.
EXHIBITION OPEN NOW AT THE FRONT ARTE CULTURA
147 W San Ysidro Blvd - San Ysidro, CA
BORROWED SCENERY - Kristi Lin
Kristi Lin is an artist and landscape designer whose deep love of the natural world and concern for social justice issues inspires her to create environments that invite us to stop and notice our place in the world. Through Borrowed Scenery, she explores her relationship to the Japanese Friendship Garden as a 4th generation Japanese American and 3rd generation Chinese American. 借景 Shakkei (Japanese) and jièjǐng (Chinese) both translate to "borrowed scenery," an ancient Asian garden design technique where a distant view, such as a faraway mountain, is incorporated into the composition of the garden. Taking a contemporary perspective, Kristi situates the Japanese Friendship Garden as borrowed scenery, distant yet woven into the landscape of her multicultural identity.
Through incorporating wind, sound, time, decay, and other natural phenomena into her artwork, Kristi Lin explores innovative ways to build public memory and inspire social change. Kristi earned her Bachelors in Landscape Architecture from University of California Davis and currently designs landscapes throughout San Diego.
EXHIBITION OPEN NOW AT THE JAPANESE FRIENDSHIP GARDEN
2215 Pan American Rd E
San Diego, CA 92101
About The Civil Liberties Fellowship Program
The Civil Liberties Project is a competitive fellowship operating as both a dialogue and production space that explores the socio-political context through which we defend and celebrate our civil liberties. The fellowship looks to engage young adults in their transition from high school, building their learning path and looking for guidance in exploring topics of humanities and the arts. Through examining archives and their relationship to community histories, we will investigate race, class, gender and sexuality. Fellows will engage in readings, discussions and presentations to make connections to civil liberty violations, such as Japanese American incarceration, voter suppression, police brutality and liberation movements, transnational effects of the Migrant Protection Protocols program, and LGBTQ rights and incarceration. Fellows will be guided to explore and experiment with art forms as a way to interrogate history. We will consider the archive as a generative space and together ideate alternative archiving models and socio-historical art practices. The cohort will build upon personal explorations to create a multimedia online archive and corresponding public interventions that invite audiences to engage with community histories.