Nica Aquino (b. 1990, Los Angeles) is a visual artist, curator & cultural producer. She received her BFA in Photography from the Pacific Northwest College of Art (Portland, OR) and MA in Contemporary Visual Culture from the Manchester School of Art (United Kingdom). Born and raised in California, Nica now lives and works between Northeast Los Angeles and La Union PH, where her family has lived and thrived for generations.
Using an everyday point and shoot camera, Nica employs 35mm analogue photography to document life as she sees it. Her image-based work is a visual diary of time, place, and memory, and is often grounded in her experience as a diasporic llokana.
She also experiments with textiles, video and sound to create interactive, intimate, and deeply personal installations that often reference memory, nostalgia, and different tiers of loss ranging from death, historical amnesia, to post-colonial melancholia.
Nica's curatorial practice provides a platform for artists of color and others navigating feelings of unbelonging. With a focus on uplifting others also existing within the margins, her curatorial projects lend visibility to the communities and stories experiencing erasure.
Check out her alternative gallery project: mataartgallery.org
Using an everyday point and shoot camera, Nica employs 35mm analogue photography to document life as she sees it. Her image-based work is a visual diary of time, place, and memory, and is often grounded in her experience as a diasporic llokana.
She also experiments with textiles, video and sound to create interactive, intimate, and deeply personal installations that often reference memory, nostalgia, and different tiers of loss ranging from death, historical amnesia, to post-colonial melancholia.
Nica's curatorial practice provides a platform for artists of color and others navigating feelings of unbelonging. With a focus on uplifting others also existing within the margins, her curatorial projects lend visibility to the communities and stories experiencing erasure.
Check out her alternative gallery project: mataartgallery.org
