Spiraling towards the sun for you and me
Lorena Cruz Santiago
Autumnal Equinox, 2023
Spiraling towards the sun for you and me is a presentation of works inspired by the artist’s parents’ gardening practice. The title references a plant’s biological drive to search for the sun, and the reciprocal relationship between a gardener and a plant. Cruz Santiago’s practice is driven by a desire to collaborate with her parents, and by using FaceTime as a medium her parents become image-makers as they compose photos together during calls. The show will feature those FaceTime compositions and prints made directly in her parents’ California garden. Live plants, her newest collaborators, will be featured in the show, as Cruz Santiago creates a support system for the plants to continue their spiraling tendencies.
Lorena Cruz Santiago is an artist working across photography, video, and installation informed and inspired by her family’s indigenous origins in Oaxaca, Mexico. Her work covers topics of migration, assimilation, labor, and more recently, collaborative image-making with her parents as a form of indigenous autonomy. Cruz Santiago holds a BFA in Photography from Sonoma State University (2016) and an MFA in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art (2019). She has been an artist-in-residence at ACRE (Steuben, WI), Ox-Bow School of Art and Artists’ Residency (Saugatuck, MI), Pocoapoco Residency (Oaxaca City, Oaxaca, MX), Oak Spring Garden and Foundation Residency (Upperville, VA), Darkroom Detroit (Detroit, MI) and Chalk Hill Residency (Healdsburg, CA). Her work has been included in shows at El Comalito Collective (Vallejo, CA), Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts (Grand Rapids, MI), Cranbrook Art Museum (Bloomfield Hills, MI), and with ACRE Projects in Chicago, IL. She is currently based in Detroit, MI.
