I think of myself as a transdisciplinary builder and artist with a background in construction, conversation, and filmmaking. My process starts with questions related to personal experiences and perceptions as a way of considering our singular selves as part of a greater whole, within a sociopolitical context.
In Fall 2022, I spent an afternoon with four young adults in the museum’s youth internship program, talking about ambitions, joys, and hopes for the future. We wrote our wishes for the coming years and used letters within those sentences to create sigils or coded symbols whose meaning is known by those who created them.
During their next group meeting, one of these super-inspiring youth interns led the same exercise for three additional participants, who were also interns. The personalized designs they created became the embroidery on each of the pillows that the youth will take home at the end of the exhibition, as their daily reminder of their wishes that can come true.
marta rodriguez maleck and the 2022-23 Newcomb Art Museum Youth Internship Cohort
marta rodriguez maleck (based in Philadelphia, PA and Bulbancha / New Orleans, LA) is a builder working at the intersection of conversation, archives, documentary, and visual mediums including performance and sculpture. By creating environments of open mindedness and self-reflection, they engage people in participatory methods of storytelling that center comfort, communal accountability, healing, and understanding. rodriguez maleck has exhibited at the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Pensacola Museum of Art, the New Orleans Public Library, Chicago’s Hyde Park Art Center, Baby Blue Gallery and Anas Galley in Chicago, AnyTime Dept in Cincinnati, and Ground Floor Gallery in Brooklyn. Their bi-monthly podcast, Reports from New Orleans, was featured on Montez Press Radio in New York, and their work has been featured in New American Paintings, Burnaway, OnCurating, LVL3, Bad at Sports, and Bust, among other publications.
