HOY Space
September 20 to December 8, 2012
Opening Reception: Sept. 20, 6 to 8 p.m.

Isabel Avila is the fifth artist whose work is featured in the HOY SPACE. For the past few years, Avila has been documenting indigenous people and their stories through photographic portraiture and video. Avila eschews stereotypical depictions of indigenous cultures and instead enlightens with depictions of individuals who are active in their respective communities as artists, speakers, activists, and community organizers. Her portraits foreground the idea of what it means to be American within a contemporary context.

In the series Parallel Worlds, she specifically explores the intersecting relationships between Native American and Mexican American cultures, Her work considers recent generations of Southwest tribal members who have grown up within a Mexican-American experience as well as the Chicanos who herald their indigenous roots as cultural markers.