Shadow Movements: Youth Arts Showcase

EXHIBITION DATES

October 18 – November 8, 2024

OPENING RECEPTION & FILM SCREENING

October 18, 2024
6 – 8 PM @ ARTogether, Oakland

OAKLAND FIRST FRIDAY

November 1, 2024
4 – 8 PM @ ARTogether, Oakland

Join us for “Shadow Movements: Youth Arts Showcase,” an exhibition of shadow puppetry, film, and animation by intergenerational artists! In our “Shadow Movements” program, professional artists mentor immigrant and refugee youth to write and record personal, create shadow puppets based on original character-designs, and bring those shadow puppets to life in animated short films. This show features a short film composed of students’ animated works, as well as an exhibition of shadow puppets and original art by students and mentors. Join us as we celebrate their beautiful work. 

EXHIBITING ARTISTS

LEAD ARTIST
	Sabina Shanti Kariat (she/they) is an Indian-American community worker, animator, artist, and filmmaker based in San Francisco. She creates animations for documentary films about diaspora narratives and fights for liberation and human rights. Sabina has been a teaching artist throughout San Francisco, and has led co-creation workshops in the Bay, in rural Jharkhand India, and in Istanbul and Reyhanli, Turkey where she completed her Fulbright Research Fellowship about representing diasporic identities through traditional puppetry.
TEACHING ARTISTS
	Paola Soyumi Ramírez Peña (she/they)is a poet, screenwriter, and sociologist on multiple planets. She is the host and creator of Somos Poetas Workshop Series and Local Fruit Podcast. Paola is a performing member of In Full Color, an artist coalition of WoC. Their research spans queer representations of the Virgen de Guadalupe and the importance of third spaces. They are an East Oakland nerd, taurus bull in pasture, the eldest of four, aspiring bassist and napper, allergic to everything, and constantly on the hunt for the best carnitas. She is a graduate of the University of Kansas.
	Jessica Nguyen (she/her) is a Bay Area grown performing and visual artist exploring themes of the estrangement of humanity. Drawing on her multidisciplinary background in the arts, sciences, and education, she is currently building shadow puppet shows examining our sentimental relationships to environmental catastrophe.
	Angie Chaparro Romero (them/them) is a queer Colombian stop motion animator. They specialize in felt, sculpture, wood, and honestly most crafts they can get their hands on. Their art focuses on childhood joy and healing, involving bright colors and whimsical characters. A lot of their work is focused on their upbringing as a Colombian person, focusing on their culture and family memories.They got interested in Stop motion after watching Coraline at the age of 8 and getting inspired by the beauty and intricacies of this style of animation.Angie graduated from California College of the Arts with a Bachelors of animation degree and is excited to teach about the lovely world of stop motion!

Facilitated by ARTogether, this program is aimed at preventing hate crimes. Funded and administered by the California Department of Social Services in partnership with the Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs in part of ongoing efforts in California to provide direct support for communities impacted by hate incidents and support victims.