Amalia Mesa Bains is an artist and cultural critic who has worked to define Chicano and Latino art in the United States and in Latin America. Mesa-Bains is best known for her large-scale installations and interpretations of traditional Chicano altars and ofrendas. Her work explores Mexican American women's spiritual practices, addresses colonial and imperial histories, the recovery of cultural memory, and their roles in identity formation. She also uses aesthetic strategies to as ways to express experiences historically associated with Mexican American women and as sites for Chicana feminist reclamation. Mesa-Bains was born in Santa Clara, CA. This piece was co-created with Angelica Muro, an Associate Professor of Integrated Media and Photography and Chair of the Visual and Public Art Department at California State University, Monterey Bay. She teaches photography, media analysis courses, and community engaged practices. Recent exhibitions of her artwork include Photo ID, Santa Cruz Museum of Art, Chico & Chang: A Look at the Impact of Latino and Asian Cultures on California's Visual Landscape, Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, CA, Chica\Chic: La Nueva Onda/The New Wave of Chicana Art, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA, You’re Breathing in It: Exploring the Studio and Alternative Art Strategies, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA, Domestic Disobedience, San Diego Mesa College, San Diego, CA, Better to Die on My Feet, Self-Help Graphics, Los Angeles, CA., and Five X Five, Southwest School of Art, San Antonio, TX. Muro’s curatorial projects have been awarded grants from the Center for Cultural Innovation through the Creative Capacity Fund, the James Irvine Foundation for Intersections, Adobe Youth Voices, the Creative Work Fund, and the Robert and Florence Slinger Fund of the Community Foundation for Monterey County.

“Mesa-Bains is best known for her large-scale installations and interpretations of traditional Chicano altars and ofrendas. Her work explores Mexican American women's spiritual practices, addresses colonial and imperial histories, the recovery of cultural memory, and their roles in identity formation.”