To mark the opening of Rafa Esparza’s exhibition de la Calle, ICA Curator Jamillah James and Rafa Esparza will discuss the artist’s collaborative approach and how art, performance, and fashion can intersect and empower new attitudes and identities. Esparza will elaborate on his three-pronged project for ICA LA, which transforms the museum’s project room into a workspace for the artist and his collaborators, and culminates in a look book and street performance.

Rafa Esparza is a multidisciplinary artist born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. Esparza employs site-specific performance, sculpture, and documentation to interrogate ethnic history and identity, personal narrative, and the genealogies of colonization. Esparza has performed in a variety of spaces including AIDS Project Los Angeles, Highways Performance Space, REDCAT, Human Resources, SOMArts, Vincent Price Museum, and LACE, among others. He is a recipient of the from the California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Arts, Art Matters, and the Rema Hort Mann Foundation. Esparza participated in the Hammer Museum’s 2016 Made in L.A. Biennial and the 2017 Whitney Biennial. His most recent solo exhibition Tierra. Sangre. Oro. was presented at Ballroom Marfa in 2018.