Artist Bio:
Michelle Castillo is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, educator, community organizer, activist, and independent curator. Castillo is the founder of the Feminist creative collective Wyld Womxn and the Filipino pop-up eatery, Lola’s Kusina and an organizer of Bayanihan Desert.
Her artistic mediums range from musical performance, poetry, food, landscape, experimental sound, and most recently, installation. Through social practice and relational aesthetics, she uses the arts as a tool to cultivate, bridge, and create more inclusive communities through alternative spaces and meaningful connections. Michelle’s personal and collaborative practice and organizing work include working at the intersections of race, class, gender, and accessibility. Her work often explores the notions and nuances of home, memory, identity in its many forms, and our interactions with nature and each other. She has produced and designed a variety of collaborative and interdisciplinary arts programming and works with galleries, arts nonprofits, and museums. Her events, pop-ups, and projects have happened inside of studio apartments, coffee shops, malls, supermarkets, and in the middle of the desert. Her writing and poetry have been featured in The Desert Sun/USA Today, East Jasmine Review, Coachella Magazine, DESERT Magazine, alternative weeklies, funky DIY zines, and other places. Michelle earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California, Riverside. Currently, she is at work on her first book about growing up in an immigrant household and is based in the California Desert.
About Lola’s Kusina:
Lola’s Kusina began in 2011, as an underground supper club and an arts/cultural happening that ran out of Michelle Castillo’s tiny studio apartment in Oakland, CA. Since then, Lola’s Kusina has done workshops, malunggay classes, private and public dinners, and popped up at bars, art galleries, parties, in the Los Angeles, Oakland, Coachella Valley area, Whole Foods Market, restaurants, and cafes. Most recently Lola’s Kusina turned into a socially engaged interactive art installation in the form of a Sari-Sari store and Filipino Food stall this past March.
Her pop-up eatery is dedicated to her family, the multifaceted immigrant experience, and named after her late Lola Sally, the matriarch of her family. Castillo grew up eating lunch at her Lola and Lolo’s house every Saturday- where different generations of her family were able to pass down and preserve their stories to the next. The eatery cultivates multi-sensory communal experiences and meaningful interactions by sharing memories and stories through food + culture. In 2016, Castillo started writing a non-fiction book based on Lola’s Kusina and recipes from her cultural roots. She hopes to one day open a brick and mortar space!
“Sharing Filipino Food to me is about decolonization and bringing awareness to our stories, culture, and experiences as Filipinx Americans. I feel food and art is a common lens from which we can all start to understand one another.”- M.C.
For more information about anotherspace exhibition, click here.
Michelle Castillo is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, educator, community organizer, activist, and independent curator. Castillo is the founder of the Feminist creative collective Wyld Womxn and the Filipino pop-up eatery, Lola’s Kusina and an organizer of Bayanihan Desert.
Her artistic mediums range from musical performance, poetry, food, landscape, experimental sound, and most recently, installation. Through social practice and relational aesthetics, she uses the arts as a tool to cultivate, bridge, and create more inclusive communities through alternative spaces and meaningful connections. Michelle’s personal and collaborative practice and organizing work include working at the intersections of race, class, gender, and accessibility. Her work often explores the notions and nuances of home, memory, identity in its many forms, and our interactions with nature and each other. She has produced and designed a variety of collaborative and interdisciplinary arts programming and works with galleries, arts nonprofits, and museums. Her events, pop-ups, and projects have happened inside of studio apartments, coffee shops, malls, supermarkets, and in the middle of the desert. Her writing and poetry have been featured in The Desert Sun/USA Today, East Jasmine Review, Coachella Magazine, DESERT Magazine, alternative weeklies, funky DIY zines, and other places. Michelle earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California, Riverside. Currently, she is at work on her first book about growing up in an immigrant household and is based in the California Desert.
About Lola’s Kusina:
Lola’s Kusina began in 2011, as an underground supper club and an arts/cultural happening that ran out of Michelle Castillo’s tiny studio apartment in Oakland, CA. Since then, Lola’s Kusina has done workshops, malunggay classes, private and public dinners, and popped up at bars, art galleries, parties, in the Los Angeles, Oakland, Coachella Valley area, Whole Foods Market, restaurants, and cafes. Most recently Lola’s Kusina turned into a socially engaged interactive art installation in the form of a Sari-Sari store and Filipino Food stall this past March.
Her pop-up eatery is dedicated to her family, the multifaceted immigrant experience, and named after her late Lola Sally, the matriarch of her family. Castillo grew up eating lunch at her Lola and Lolo’s house every Saturday- where different generations of her family were able to pass down and preserve their stories to the next. The eatery cultivates multi-sensory communal experiences and meaningful interactions by sharing memories and stories through food + culture. In 2016, Castillo started writing a non-fiction book based on Lola’s Kusina and recipes from her cultural roots. She hopes to one day open a brick and mortar space!
“Sharing Filipino Food to me is about decolonization and bringing awareness to our stories, culture, and experiences as Filipinx Americans. I feel food and art is a common lens from which we can all start to understand one another.”- M.C.
For more information about anotherspace exhibition, click here.
