Alexia Maldonado Juarez — Learning from the Cloud Rainforest

ALEXIA MALDONADO JUAREZ

BIO

Alexia Maldonado-Juarez is a Mexico-Japanese, multi-disciplinary artist based in Montreal (Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal) currently pursuing a BFA at Concordia University with a Major in Intermedia: Cyberarts and a Specialization in Acting for the Theater. Her practice revolves around performance creation, painting and video-making.

Maldonado-Juarez’s work often revolves around social-political issues close to her heart and themes of the self. She is drawn to the human psyche and how identity leaves footprints on ourselves and the world around us. Through her art, she wishes to create a space where her communities can be seen, heard, and feel empowered.

ARTIST STATEMENT
The Cloud Rainforest of Monteverde is full to the brim with a wild variety of flora and fauna, each species with its own survival methods and ways of living. Their jarring differences are what create and feed the millennial system of the rainforest.

Encouraged by this idea of interconnectivity and cooperation between species, I started drawing parallels between different aspects and mechanisms present in Monteverde’s greenery and the collaborative nature of performance creation.

Inspired by some of these concepts such as biomimicry, permaculture, and the competition for the sunlight, I honed my research on how they could be incorporated into different aspects of performance (such as choreography, lighting, prop-making) that would end up affecting both the artists’ experience of their work, and the audience’s witnessing of the performance.