Castillo • Mendoza • Ramirez
In Conversation
November 22, 2025. 2 to 4 P.M.
Made possible in part with AoR Microgrant support from the City of Santa Monica Cultural Affairs.
Jackie Castillo (b. 1990 Orange, California) Embracing the mediums of film photography, sculpture, and installation, Jackie Castillo’s practice is marked by an ongoing investigation between city infrastructure, collective memory, and the isolation and anxiety felt by the working class. Castillo’s site-specific installations combine photographs of suburban and urban landscapes with architectural remnants to explore the ways in which place, labor, memories, and identity can become fractured, estranged, or made invisible.
Castillo studied at the School of Photography at Orange Coast College, received her BA in Art from the School of Art and Architecture at UCLA, and an MFA in Art from the Roski School of Art and Design at USC in 2025. Her work has been recently exhibited at The California Museum, The Long Beach Museum of Art, The Mistake Room, the 2022 New Wight Biennial at Broad Art Center, and the Mexican Center for Culture and Cinematic Arts, among other institutions. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art acquired her work as part of the permanent collection in 2023. She was awarded the 2021 Individual Artist Fellowship by the California Arts Council. She has a forthcoming solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in Spring 2025. She lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Yulissa Mendoza (b. 1997, San Bernardino, CA) lived a majority of their formative years in the unincorporated area of Muscoy, CA. They are a portrait photographer and multimedia installation artist. They use photography and installation as a means of archiving and honoring their family's land, traditions, and upbringings while creating romanticized worlds and pieces that would suit and welcome the person that they are today. They graduated from the University of California, Irvine, with a BA in Cultural Anthropology. They have been exhibited in the Blue Rose Gallery, The Artlands, The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, and The Little Gallery of San Bernardino.
Alkaid Ramirez (b. 1995, Santa Ana, California) is a lens-based artist. Ramirez utilizes photography and archival methodologies to capture the civic unrest of their community; as the son of resilient Latino immigrant parents, Ramirez intergenerationally deconstructs decoloniality, questioning assimilation, social inequality, inequity, and the systemic challenges faced by working-class immigrants and underrepresented communities.
Ramirez’s work has been exhibited in the Cultural Arts Center of the City of Norwalk, Crear Studio Gallery, The Irvine Fine Arts Center, and Street Space Gallery. His work has been featured in The Latinx Project, Voice of OC, and LA Times, and he is the author of Anaheim Blvd: Hood to Suburb. They received the Community Engagement Grant and the Individual Artist Fellowship 'Emerging Artist' Award from the California Arts Council. Ramirez is part of the AltaMed Collection. They live and work in Anaheim, California.
