Electronicas, Latinas thriving in Media Arts WHEN: Friday, September 27th, 2024, 7PM-11PMWHERE: SpanicArts, 604 1st SW Calgary ABFREE EVENT TO ATTENDEMMEDIA invites you to celebrate the work of Latina media artists living in Alberta! Laura Anzola, Alexandra Contreras, Evelyn Delgado, Ingrid Vargas, Maria Munar, and Kamika Guerra-Walker blend technology and art, creating performances, projection mapping, animation, dance and short films. During this event, we will see one work from each artist, talk with them during an engaging Q&A and end the night with an all out party of Latin classics and Mexican food for our Latina community to socialize and build connections with each other! Check out the schedule of the night: 7:00 PM Screening by Kamika Bianca Guerra 7:10 PM Screening by Ingrid Vargas 7:20 PM Light Show by Evelyn Delgado 7:40 PM Performance by Laura Anzola and Alexandra Contreras 7:50 PM Screening by Kamika Bianca Guerra featuring the Como Se Dice Collective 8:30 PM Q&A with all Artists, hosted by Nash Chaparro 9:00 PM Mexican Food served for all guests 9:00PM to 11:00PM Celebration/Dance Party! Socialize and dance in celebration of our Latin-American community! get your tickets Thank you to our funders Alberta Culture Days and the government of Alberta. Finding My Way Back to You A participatory-short documentary that follows Kamika’s journey growing up as a half-Jamaican, half-Chilean young girl in the polarizing communities of Calgary whilst dealing with her Father’s diagnosis of Schizophrenia. This project was produced under the Being Black in Canada 2021 program presented by NETFLIX and The Fabienne Colas Foundation. It currently serves as a proof-of-concept for the development of the feature film version of this heart-pulling story.Director, Writer, Executive Producer: Kamika Bianca Guerra-WalkerDirector of Photography, Executive Producer: Wyatt SawyerAbout Kamika Bianca Guerra-Walker Kamika Bianca Guerra-Walker is of Jamaican and Chilean heritage, and hails from Calgary, Alberta. She is a multi-disciplinary visionary wearing several hats as director, producer, writer, model, actress, and founder of The Walker Foundation. Kamika’s insatiable passion lies in understanding people and helping them understand themselves. With a deep-rooted commitment to advancing mental health systems, Kamika embarked on a journey that led her from studying psychology at the University of Calgary to becoming an acclaimed emerging director by telling the story of her and her Father’s journey with mental illness.Her films have garnered recognition for their ability to evoke empathy towards individuals grappling with mental illness, addiction, and houselessness. She was one of 20 directors in the Netflix/Fabienne Colas Foundation program Being Black in Canada 2021 cohort, and her contribution, Finding My Way Back to You, toured Black film festivals across the nation. This inspired her to keep writing and she is currently in post-production for two projects streaming on Optik TV through the Black Creators Edition program from TELUS, STORYHIVE, and the BSO. Episode 1 of "The Black Mustard Seeds” is currently available on TELUS Optik TV. Weavings Storytelling through dance and new media, reflecting on the threads that bring together ideas such as origins, time, memories and identity. About Alexandra Contreras@alcontrariaAlexandra (she) started a theatre company at age 7 in Bogotá, Colombia. She studied at Alberta Ballet School and holds a B.A. in Dance and a B.Ed. Over the years she has performed independently, namely with Ballet Creole (Toronto), at Rhubarb Festival (Toronto), Feats Festival (Edmonton), and more recently with Calgary Core Contemporaries (Katharina Schier), Error 404 Dancefound (Zaria Rajha and Mario Obeid) and Ballet Bodies YYC (Serenella Arqueta). Alexandra lives in Calgary and continues to plot other artistic endeavours with talented artists she is proud to call friends, most recently with Laura Anzola, venturing into cross-discipline art experiments. About Laura Anzolawww.lauraanzola.comNew Media artist Laura Anzola examines and critiques the impact of technology on our daily lives and bodies, corporeal gestures, and global mobility, through unconventional applications of tech – adapted, hacked, and transformed. Her work often casts a skeptical eye on global societal issues using visual storytelling and interactive media. Her current project, Blue Borders, explores notions of home, identity, privilege and belonging. Laura’s work has been shown in multiple galleries and public spaces in Colombia, Germany, and Canada. Tales of a Robot Girl Tales of a Robot Girl is a story of a young child who finds herself caught in the overwhelming noise of media and robotic language. As children engage with the world, they gradually adopt the mechanical patterns of communication—pre-programmed by filters, edits, and retouches. For an immigrant child, the challenge of reprogramming and assimilation becomes a journey of identifying and prioritizing the elements that need transformation. In this work, traditional Costa Rican motifs are reimagined through the use of liquid light show elements, frame-by-frame animations, and live motion capture, blending cultural heritage with modern technology to explore the complexities of identity in a digitized world.About Evelyn Delgado@evvie_lightpirateww.lightpirate.netEvelyn channels the rich tradition of analog art forms into her interdisciplinary practice. Blending shadow puppetry, hand-drawn animation, and stop-motion. Her work conjures punk goth vignettes deeply influenced by magical surrealism, inviting viewers into a world where the fantastical becomes tangible. As one half of the duo Lightpirate, Evelyn crafts immersive sound visualizations and liquid light shows, echoing the legacy of 1960s psychedelic light art while infusing it with a contemporary edge. Her performances transcend mere visuals; they are living, breathing expressions of sound and light, merging analog with digital to create captivating audiovisual narratives. All Saints ALL SAINTS is inspired by my spiritual and cultural journey as it unfolded in my twenties.As a Colombian immigrant growing up in Canada, my cultural and personal identity tend to be torn between two, almost polar opposite mores.My central vision for this film was to use it as a medium to harmonize the two worlds I’ve grown up in. One is loud, warm, inviting; the other, reserved, at times stark, mirroring the landscape. ALL SAINTS captures this in black and white vingnettes and through the lives of three women each faced with the legalism of being “one thing or the other.” Each character is a projection of a struggle, fear, or anxiety that I have faced or will face with time. These scenarios may come off as niche experiences, but fundamentally, they are about desire; how it changes with time, how it shapes us, how it makes us question our values, and sometimes ourselves. This film is about our yearnings and ultimately our hearts- what they lust for, what they hide, and what they long for.About Ingrid VargasIngrid Vargas is a writer, director, and producer with a strong handle on the nuances that make everyday life extraordinary. Her work thoughtfully reflects her experience as a Colombian-Canadian, and as a woman forging a career as an artist in Canada. She has developed a unique, authorial voice that confidently combines naturalism with sublime moments of visual poetry. As a storyteller, she is curious, playful, and her work reflects insightful appreciations for subtlety, humour, and the unexpected.