Director: Lucia Morales

Film: Mantas en la Capital

Bio: Mantas transport babies, sustenance, flowers, and crops while carrying Andean traditions. They can be seen on the backs of migrants traveling to the capital as they search for opportunities for themselves and their families. In this video work, the mantas make visible some of the unseen weight that migrants and immigrants carry with them as they leave their homes and communities. The bright colors and patterns of the mantas make themselves present in a landscape of gray streets and smoky buildings; meanwhile, passersby carry on seemingly unaware or willfully ignoring their existence.

Lucia Morales is a Miami based artist and educator, from Lima, Perú. Her childhood home and cultural heritage have shaped and influenced her artistic practice in different ways. Maintaining a strong connection to her roots, she has danced and performed Peruvian folklore since childhood. Her artistic practice is concerned with how migration and immigration challenge notions of identity. Lucia uses textiles, paintings, video and installation to create figurative works that speak to her Andean identity as it exists here and now, as well as the to the moments that have shaped it. As her work grows in scale and scope, it is her intention to transcend beyond the self into community visibility, taking up, and creating spaces to be shared with others.

Lucia is an MFA candidate at Florida International University and holds a Master’s of Art Education and a Bachelor’s of Landscape Architecture from Florida International University. She has been an Art Educator for many years with Broward and Miami-Dade public schools as well with local cultural institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami and The Wolfsonian-FIU.

e where through careful curation new visions can be realized.