For the 2015 Terrain Biennial, Alejandro Figueredo Diaz-Perera will work with host and local landscape designer, Randall Lewis to create a site-specific artwork that makes use of the number one resource of the desert, the sun. The resulting artwork might take the shape of a projection piece or large-scale shadow box. To mimic the water regulations imposed on the region as a result of the ongoing regional drought, Alejandro and Randall will work within a set of limitations set by the site's curator, Cara Megan Lewis, to create an interactive installation.

 

 

Cara Megan Lewis is an artist and curator based in Chicago and currently holds the position of Associate Director at Rhona Hoffman Gallery. Upon receiving her Master's degree in Curatorial Practice from the California College of the Arts in 2007, Lewis co-founded the Kansas City art gallery, Cara y Cabezas Contemporary. During the gallery's 4 years of operation, Lewis organized solo exhibitions for international artists, developed group exhibitions that explored socio-political themes, and fostered a residency program that hosted artists from Central America and the Caribbean. As an artist, Lewis collaborates with Alejandro Figueredo Diaz-Perera under the name Diaz Lewis. Their collaborative practice in performance, video installation, and photography investigates how the changing political relationship between their two home countries (US and Cuba) manifests on a micro level. Informed by political rhetoric, immigration and property rights, Diaz Lewis dissect relevant themes from two very distinct and often opposing perspectives.    

 

Alejandro Figueredo Diaz-Perera is an emerging artist from Havana, Cuba, based in Chicago, IL. A conceptual artist, Diaz-Perera works across the mediums of video, photography, painting, installation and text; the medium is dictated by the idea or investigation. Through his practice, he seeks to make connections between the personal and the universal points of view, exploring the concept of absence in many different ways, by the process of forcing to contradict himself. Recent exhibitions include a two-person show with collaborator Cara Megan Lewis at The Mission Gallery and participation in the Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival at Defibrillator Gallery, both in Chicago. Participation in festivals and exhibitions in Cuba include the International Festival of Video Art in Camaguey, the 10th and 11th Havana Biennials, and a workshop-exhibition in collaboration with Gabriel Orozco in Havana.    

 

Randall L Lewis is Palm Springs' Xerophyte, a landscape designer who has been developing and maintaining desert adapted gardens and lighting in the Coachella Valley area since 1997. With a dedication to water conservation, Lewis implements low water usage landscape practices that capitalize on the varied and indigenous plant and rock material that the desert has to offer. This concept extends to his own studio practice where dried plant materials become the subjects of small-scale shadow boxes.