MSDUE Class of 2015–

Independent Curator and Cultural Producer.

Raquel is currently working in New York City as an Associate Producer on two nationally touring transmedia projects. The first addresses the economic security of America’s caregivers, and the second police accountability and state surveillance. These projects require Raquel to hold many interpersonal relationships and act as liaison with film festivals, museums, funders, alternative art spaces, community organizers and privately owned businesses. In addition to production and curatorial work, Raquel is acting as Project Manager on a program that looks to increase arts and culture in NYCHA campuses, as part of Arts and Democracy, as well as building a decentralized organizing platform to generate insight and input on NYC’s emerging Cultural Plan, as part of Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts.

As a producer, Raquel has chosen to work on projects rooted in social justice and activism. They use new forms of media and intervention to interject conversations into public spaces. As a project manager, she is working from a community organizing level to impact policy relating to public housing and access to the arts.  Her role has been to map the various organizations working to build culture from the ground up, and bring their constituencies to the city table so that they may advocate for themselves in a landscape that has traditionally been absent of their voices.  In many ways, what she is building is a space for self-determination, so that residents can ask for and create their vision of New York City.

Raquel obtained a BA with double major in Sociology/Anthropology and Psychology, and had extensive curatorial practice prior to joining the MSDUE program. She joined the program in order to add the spatial, political and social understanding to her practice, needed to create her own voice within the contemporary art world. Raquel writes: “MSDUE extended and deepened my practice, by giving me a more solid foundation in understanding the basics of policy and design, and how organizers can strategize for change. My work as an organizer was strengthened, as I was able to fully understand how building a cross-sectoral team of collaborators with a variety of skill sets, backgrounds and world-views could improve and scale-up our shared work.”