In Reverence to the Feminine : natalia ventura | Protean Being Still 1

Protean Being Still 1, natalia ventura, 2023, Performance art, $180

Artist Statement

Based in San Diego | unceded Kumeyaay land

natalia ventura is an interdisciplinary artist from Chula Vista, California. She leads a double studio/ social practice that reflects the duality of her borderlands consciousness. Her studio work explores her internal experiences as a Mexican-Cuban-American woman, while her social practice engages art in the disruption of border militarization. natalia is rooted in a practice of radical love, and aims for her work to simultaneously transform herself and her community.

Protean Beings

protean: (adj.) tending or able to change frequently or easily 

Protean Beings is a performance art piece that grieves the plight of migrants and the environmental destruction of the borderlands to transmute their pain into hope. natalia embodies the spirit of Coatlicue, the Aztec goddess of life and death, and is dressed in a 30-foot long mourning cloak as tall as the new border walls. She performs a grieving ritual at key sites along the Southern California border to honor the souls and the land that have suffered, and to help their souls cross to the other side even if their bodies did not get to.