Frontier Fellowship: Blanca Villalobos

Blanca S. Villalobos, Cultural Worker + Artist (Beaumont, CA)

A proud, queer daughter of immigrants, Blanca S. Villalobos (they/she) holds ancestral connections in Jalisco, MX, home to the Wixarika people, and was raised on the ancestral lands of the Cahuilla & Yuhaviatam/Maarenga’yam people in the San Gorgonio Pass of Southern California. A lover of deserts and mountains, they spent the majority of their twenties in the Pacific Northwest organizing cultural happenings with and for communities of color while simultaneously developing their performance practice. They now live in the same region that raised them and are currently co-facilitating a racial justice program for desert conservation advocates in California.

Villalobos’ art practice is often informed by dreams, memories & relationships; of course these topics are also the center of their community offerings related to Mexican traditional medicine for communities of color. Currently, they are running a DIY artist residency from their home in the Mojave desert where their research has taken a non traditional methodology: rest, pleasure & play. After three years of hustling with a full time job and artist collective Villalobos has made it their goal to slow down and return home to themselves.

What about Green River & the Frontier Fellowship excites you most?

What I am looking forward to the most at Green River and as a Frontier Fellow is the opportunity to take part in any community building efforts to uplift voices from the global majority while in the middle of a global pandemic. I love meeting new people, learning about their passions and being able to witness their resiliency. My hope is to center joy and knowledge sharing while in communion in such a beautiful landscape. As for my art, I am excited to shift my practice so that I may create from a place of joy rather than from trauma. This is not to negate or dismiss my own journey in healing, on the contrary I look forward to cultivating moments of bliss.