The exhibition La Sierra served as the capstone for the participant research, community engagement, and subject interviews conducted under Adams State University’s Social Practice Arts Residency Program, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts’ Challenge America Grant. The exhibition reflects a fragment of the depth of community and social discourse I had the privilege of experiencing throughout my residency.

Working alongside members of the San Luis Land Rights Council, we gathered personal histories from the beneficiaries of the 1844 Sangre de Cristo Land Grant, issued under the Mexican land grant system. Together with Dana Maestas, we filmed the stories of nine grant heirs, each recounting their connection to and struggle for access to La Sierra—a mountain range in southern Colorado at the heart of a decades-long litigation battle for land rights.

This project reflects my ongoing commitment to collaborative, community-based art that surfaces suppressed histories and examines the enduring legacies of colonization, using storytelling as both a tool for remembrance and a catalyst for imagining more equitable futures.