Exhibition Runs: September 24 – October 31, 2026
Reception + Panel Discussion:
Saturday, October 17, 4:30p – 6:30p
Harwood Art Center is pleased to present Papi León and Friends by 2026 Artist in Residence, Marie Alarcón. For Papi León and Friends, Artist in Residence Marie Alarcón worked with local artists, through a series of community workshops on the construction of “diasporic deities.”
Gallery Hours
Thursday – Saturday: 10a – 3p
Reception & Artist Talk
Join us at the reception for an artist talk featuring Marie Alarcón at Harwood on Saturday, October 17 from 4:30pm – 6:30pm. This event is free and open to the public.
Papi León and Friends
For Papi León and Friends, Artist in Residence Marie Alarcón worked with local artists, through a series of community workshops on the construction of “diasporic deities.” These deities act as placeholders for the diasporic and their lost links to ancestors. The work in this show reflects the process of creating space for these deities in their various forms. Alarcón’s deity, Papi León, is part pirate, part cannibal, and part zombie, an artifact of the three nationalities in Alarcon’s Filipino, Puerto Rican, and Haitian ancestry. Viewers can also watch Alarcón’s Apocalypso, a film made between New Mexico and Puerto Rico.
About Marie
Trained in documentary filmmaking, Marie Alarcón explores the underlying experience of diaspora and displacement. Through their process of research and discovery they create new cultural artifacts that are the amalgamation of broad cultural references and highly personal inventions, resulting in installations, films, and performances that question authenticity and what it means to belong.
Apocalypso
The exhibition also features the film Apocalypso by Alarcón, created between New Mexico and Puerto Rico. “Apocalypso peers into the mythology of the United States as a land of freedom. The personal is political, the story of how my grandparents met is ultimately a long and winding story of western colonialism. Apocalypso explores the desires and contradictions of those who came to the US searching for the American dream. We see an iteration of Papi León wandering New Mexico, while appropriated footage is superimposed and sound bites elaborate. Footage of Puerto Rico is interspersed with desert footage and archival footage of Haiti. Papi León is a Pirate, Zombie, Cannibal representing the Puerto Rican, Haitian, and Filipino aspects of my heritage.” – Marie Alarcón
Featured Artists from the Diaspric Deities Workshop:
Marisol Driovínto, Christina Yovovich, Loki-Anthony Honey and Lena Ilene Weiss
Loki-Anthony Honey
Anighi Watu
This piece, Anighi Watu (or Heart Fire in Garifuna), is dedicated to the concept of the trickster. Anighi Watu represents the double-sided-ness of positive and negative and how they have historically been applied to BIPOC individuals without their consent: the inability to fall somewhere in the gray of morality. Anighi Watu can do great good at the same time that she can do great bad, but she is innately unable to do anything in the gray.
Christina Yovovich
Baba Socorro’s Garments
The tunic, cardigan, and shawl were all made by me between 2021-2026. While they are all things I made to wear myself, I also see them as garments Baba Socorro, the diasporic diety I envisioned as a part of the workshop with Marie, would happily wear as she sat upon the porch of her adobe house which roams New Mexico on its giant roadrunner legs. She dresses for herself and her standards and comfort.
Marisol Driovínto
In Search of Camiyote Consuelo to ask for Safe Passage Across Borders
Camiyote Consuelo is a three headed deity living at the borderlands of the spirit, physical, and dream realms. It has the power to move seamlessly through realms, shapeshift, and summon groups of species to provide safe crossing and passage through any borderland obstacle. Its favored and original form is that of a three headed coyote. Camiyote is a land steward devoted to the health and balance of the earth’s ecological ecosystems and migratory patterns. Their main motivation lies in a devotion to providing safe crossing and passage for genuine spirits, especially migratory species and species threatened by extinction. Every once in a while they will guide a human with a genuine heart to a safe space. However, this is rare since Camiyote actively opposes borders and those who establish barriers that create blockages for migratory movement (humans).
This exhibition follows a fictional story of a woman named Vera through a personal altar display with a collection of artifacts in search for a deity she encountered in her childhood,
In a moment of despair and hopelessness, Camiyote Consuelo appeared to Vera and guided her safely to a new home and family after becoming lost while crossing the Mexican/American Border. The memories of this deity consume Vera now in her old age, as she tries to piece together her past while attempting to call upon Camiyote for safe passage of immigrants at risk of being lost and harmed at the borderlands.
Lena Ilene Weiss
Messenger, Memory Veil, installation Print, Table and Curtain about 40 inches wide and a foot deep?
I am proud to be a Diaspora Jew, part of a scattered people,originally nomadic and often cast out
A member of a people, not a nation state, and so far from where my grandparents called home.
The work with Diaspora Deities offered up a chance to explore places where I could sense the grief of being so far from where my people began and feel the joy of all that had survived.
As a group,we contemplated the many things we will never know about who we are
and the personal narratives we each create to hold ourselves in place.
Working consciously in this realm, with others was so useful.
We witnessed and reflected for one another; we created while being held in community.
The pieces I created through the work together emphasizes that what is broken is not lost.
We become but remain.
My work often depicts a ‘space between’, while not dieties exactly, the figures in my paintings often have a foot in more than one world. Their skies hold many suns and there are lots of windows to see through.
I am grateful to Harwood Art Center and Marie Alarcon for the Diaspora Dieties Workshop,
In this show I am sharing 2 paintings and a print /mixed media installation.
The braided material in the install was conceived and created , along with Miccelle Korte, in community and honors the Boundless Across Borders action, that took place in 2017 on the Paseo del Norte International Bridge.
The table lace was created by Jaunita Sandoval, and passed down to me by her daughter.
The mosaic cups are filled with Kosher Salt.
About Harwood’s Residency Program
Each fall for thirteen years, Harwood’s Galleries are devoted to artists working at the intersections of creative expression and social justice. In 2021, for the occasion of Harwood’s 30th Anniversary, we expanded this offering and formally established our first official annual residency program.
Harwood’s residency program supports the creation of new, original, and experimental projects and their culminating public exhibitions, by artists who work at the intersections of art and social inquiry. The resident artist is resourced with a private studio at Harwood for the duration of their year long residency, 2 six week exhibitions, project, promotional, and professional support from our staff, and honoraria to support their time, materials and creative work.