Michelle Peraza
Residency period: August – October, 2024
Michelle Peraza, Interstices (detail), 2022/24, coloured pencil, 23k gold leaf,
red radish and purple carrot paper on amate/amatl paper.
Michelle Peraza is a visual artist of Cuban and Costa Rican descent. Through a research- and material-based practice, she explores the complexity of the LatinX experience, postcolonialism, allegory, transculturation, resilience, repetitive stories, layered identities, and ambiguity. She holds a BA from Western University, a BFA from OCAD University and an MFA from York University.
Project description
For her residency, Peraza will create two large-scale drawings by working on-site and collaboratively through a series of workshops. Drawing inspiration from scholars, artists, and scientists speaking from the margins, Peraza will engage with the alt-anthro scene and the asymmetry in the current geological age. She will be inspired by the colonial-led movement of plant life throughout the globe, the dissemination of drawn botanical images, our lived and embodied experiences of plants, geological strata, entanglement, and mending. Working closely with the AGO’s botanical collection and amate/amatl paper—a tree bark paper traditionally used for Mesoamerican codices and mass burned in the colonial project—the project is intended to engage in world-making and reimagining processes.
