Artistas Afuera! con Alexandra Martinez

¡Artistas Afuera! || Alexandra Martinez || June 22, 2024, 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM || Cottonwood Amphitheater || Joshua Tree National Park
Martinez’s one day poetry workshop will focus on answering the questions:
- How do we make our writing informed by, but not dominated by the desert?
- How do we make it malleable, like the desert?

Through crafting poems from the point of view of various flora and fauna found in the Mojave desert we will be deconstructing and reconstructing ideas about identity and the idea of interconnected ecosystems.

Alexandra Martinez is an award winning poet and writer based in Joshua Tree, CA. She has two published works, Heartbreaker, and her most recent book is titled Our Lady of Perpetual Desert was winner of the Hillary Gravendyk Prize. Martinez, raised within Southern California’s inland sprawl, brings you into her worlds as the daughter of immigrants living in the Inland Empire. Her words glow with memory, lost dreams, and the sobering experience of the present. 

Our Lady of Perpetual Desert is a collection of poems and prose that mulls over Martinez’s existence in the United States as a first generation Mexican American. It is less a book about cultural identity than about class, power, and maintaining hope in the struggle against oppressive norms and structures. Concise indictments of an unjust society are deftly disguised as poems about nature, work, and family. In Our Lady of Perpetual Desert the desert and California aren't only background landscapes but characters.

¡Artistas Afuera! is a free arts program for the communities of Coachella, Eastern Indio, Thermal, and desert regions surrounding Joshua Tree National Park.

¡Artistas Afuera! is a Latinx expression of art, culture, and identity.

Una expresión latina de arte, cultura e identidad.

We provide FREE transportation to the event. No parking is available at Cottonwood Amphitheater!

No hay estacionamiento disponible en el Cottonwood Amphitheater. Proporcionaremos transporte GRATIS al evento.

¡Artistas Afuera! will bring one Latinx-identifying artist, collective, community activist, or culture bearer into Joshua Tree National Park for a monthly arts event. Located as the southern entrance to the park, the Cottonwood Amphitheater sits amidst open panoramas and uninterrupted views of the Colorado Desert. This intimate setting will be the backdrop for five different artists who will have the opportunity to facilitate a public performance, interactive experience, or demonstration that articulates or expresses their interpretation of the Chicano experience as it intersects with unique issues that face their community.

Taking place the last Saturday of each month, these events are free to the public, ADA accessible, and shuttle transportation is provided. All attendees receive a free park pass good for one year to encourage relationship building with the national park.

A partir de febrero de 2024, ¡Artistas Afuera! llevará a un artista, colectivo, activista comunitario o portador de cultura que se identifique como latino al Parque Nacional Joshua Tree para un evento artístico mensual en el Anfiteatro Cottonwood. Ubicado en la entrada sur del parque, el Anfiteatro Cottonwood se encuentra en medio de panoramas abiertos y vistas ininterrumpidas del desierto de Colorado.

Estos eventos, que se llevan a cabo el último sábado de cada mes, son gratuitos para el público, accesibles según la ADA y se proporciona transporte de enlace. Todos los asistentes reciben un pase gratuito para el parque válido por un año para fomentar la creación de relaciones con el Parque Nacional.

For more information please follow us on social @jtnpa, and visit joshuatree.org.

Para obtener más información, síganos en las redes sociales @jtnpa y visite joshuatree.org.

Contact Dez Ramirez, Curator and Project Coordinator for questions: dez@joshuatree.org.

Póngase en contacto con Dez Ramírez, si tiene preguntas: dez@joshuatree.org.