About
Tesora Garcia (she/her) is a Salvadoran-American media artist, writer, and educator whose work is here to dismantle the violence of the Global North. A citizen of the Global South and an American Dreamer, Tesora’s research--drawing from various threads in immigration politics, philosophies of madness, and nonwestern esoteric spirituality--aims to explore how structural violence shapes personal and collective experience. A co-founder of Becoming Sticky, a lens-based collective of Central American photographers in the diaspora, Tesora uses a mixed-media approach that combines creative writing, critical theory, and experimental photography to unsettle fixed systems of value and artistic inquiry. Tesora’s work, through novel approaches like insect reiki and games in collective consciousness, is dedicated to the emancipation of bodies, thought, and land.
Tesora holds an MFA degree in Photography & Extended Media from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), dual degrees in Photography and Art History from the University of North Texas, and currently serves as Assistant Professor of Photography and Digital Futures at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA, where she is teaching the next generation of experimental media artists and thinkers.
CV
SELECTED GROUP/SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2019 Touching History: Stonewall 50; curated by David Frantz, Palm Springs Museum of Art, Palm Springs, California
2019 Next Exit; EX OVO Gallery, Dallas, Texas.
2019 Altered After; group exhibition curated by Conrad Ventur & VisualAIDS, New York, New York.
2019 Dallas Pavillion invitational exhibition (group), Pollock Gallery, Dallas, Texas.
2019 Bethesda Brotherhood; solo exhibition. Lawndale Art Center; Houston, Texas.
2019 Looms, Sweet Pass Sculpture Park, Dallas, Texas.
2018 In Sickness; two-person show curated by Benjamin Terry. Texas Woman’s University; Denton, Texas.
2018 Transmission Reentry; curated by Giovanni Valderas. SP/N Gallery, University of Texas at Dallas; Richardson, Texas.
2016 Cut-Ups: Queer Collage Practices; curated by David Frantz, Lucas Hilderbrand, and Kayleigh Perkov Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art; New York, New York.
2016 Cock, Paper, Scissors; curated by David Frantz, Lucas Hilderbrand, and Kayleigh Perkov (juried group show), Plummer Park, ONE Gallery, Los Angeles, California.
ADVISING & SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
2021
Rocks are Magic: Deep Time Fables (v2)
VCU Faculty Lecture Series, Richmond, Virginia
2021
Rocks are Magic: Deep Time Fables (v1)
The Sweetpass Sculpture Park School, Dallas, Texas.
2019
Panel Talk
Group Artist Talk and Discussion, Touching History, Palm Springs Museum of Art, Palm Springs, California.
2019
Artist Talk
Group Artist Talk and Discussion, Ex Ovo Gallery, Dallas Texas.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY & PRESS
Jonathan Molina-Garcia, “Love Spirals,” Dismantling Borders, Building Bridges: Immigration and Diaspora, Durham: NC: Duke University Press (forthcoming).
2020
Natalie Gempel, “Should the Omni Dallas Put ‘Black Lives Matter’ on Its Facade?” D Magazine online.
2019
Lillian Michel, “Landmarks and What They Communicate: ‘Next Exit’ at ex ovo,” Glasstire online.
2019
Darryl Ratcliff, “West Dallas sculpture park provides an oasis in a rapidly changing neighborhood,” Dallas Morning News.
2019
Conrad Ventur, “Altered After,” Altered After exhibition catalogue, Visual Aids, New York.
2018
Jennifer Smart, “Transmission Reentry Reveals the Material of Soft Power”, DMagazine Online