West Harbor Waterfront Public Art Portfolio Edgar Fabián Frías

Vessel (For Takutsi Nakawé), 2024 (Forthcoming)

As part of the PAiD Artist Council, in partnership with Dyson Womack and Nick Rodrigues, I am creating a sculptural object honoring the Goddess Takutsi Nakawé, known as "Our Great Grandmother Growth." This work will serve as a focal point for communal reflection, unity, ancestral veneration, and the reestablishment of reciprocal relationships with the earth. Takutsi Nakawé, significant within the mythology of my people, the Wixárika, embodies growth, wisdom, verdure, agricultural bounty, and healing rites. Rooted in Indigenous futurism, queerness, imagination, and radical resistance, the artwork will foster dialogue and introspection, especially for queer, Latinx, and indigenous communities. The sculpture, person-sized or slightly larger, will incorporate elements like solar power and new media. This celebration of diverse cultures will claim space and ensure these communities feel welcomed, seen, and valued. The sculpture will debut in the Fall at a Los Angeles County Park.

Standing On The Ground With Your Body In The Sky, 2023

This event took place at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) on June 14, 2023. In conjunction with the exhibition Another World: The Transcendental Painting Group, 1938–1945, participants joined artist Edgar Fabián Frías for a performance workshop exploring ways art can be used in individual and collective journeys to connect mind, body, spirit, and creativity. The workshop began with a contemplative moment with the paintings as well as time for participants to make art, write, and embody their experiences with the paintings. After this Edgar led the group on a procession through the Resnik Pavillion and the Kendall Concourse, finally ending with the group forming a circle in the museum's Smidt Welcome Plaza. Workshop participants were then invited to perform within the circle.

Hechizo Tuutú, 2023

Artwork featured on KRON4: San Francisco Bay Area News.

Multimedia “Art Spell” video showcased on the SalesForce Tower in San Francisco throughout the month of June for Pride 2023. In collaboration with Jim Campbell’s Studio (Day for Night, 2018) and in partnership with Boston Properties. The title of the artwork means “flower spell” in Spanish and Wixárika.

Hixiapa, 2022

“Frías’ work is based in practices of care and spirituality that propose a future in which queer, Indigenous, and feminist knowledge is centered. A deeply multidisciplinary artist, they produce performances, GIFs, sculpture, video, sound, and many other forms of art. For this exhibition, Frías created a waiting room in a treatment center of the future. A response to the collective experience of close community and family members succumbing to algorithm-driven brainwashing, their project embraces the liminal nature of such spaces to probe the possibilities and dangers of New Age healing and thought.

Hixiapa (all elements 2022) (which means “center” in Frías’s ancestral Wixárika language spoken by indigeous people in Mexico) consists of three elements that engage Wixárika spiritual and creative traditions to guide the waiting room visitor’s experience. A large printed tapestry entitled Teiwáari, is a ritual device called a niereka that allows one to engage in world-building, as well as contacting other realms. Xamuríiya (which means “to be caught in a web”) includes a variety of animated videos that play within the gallery and in other spaces in the museum as a looping channel of passive entertainment that is also an active algorithm, conditioning and coaxing people into the space. The final element, Mi Uwene (2022), replaces the banal design of the waiting room chair with a sacred shaman’s chair. By building out the contemporary space of the waiting room with Indigenous ritual objects that utilize computer-generated aesthetics alongside natural and fantastical human-made materials, Frías interrogated and reimagined notions of healing through the many gray areas between helping and harming.”

Claire Frost, Curatorial Assistant.

 Nierika: Santuario Somático, 2020

Solo exhibition at Oregon Contemporary in Portland, Oregon, curated by Justin Hoover and featuring digital prints, custom-designed ready-made objects in the form of shower curtains and pillows, video projections, and screen-based videos and GIFs.

Holographic Space & Time Ceremony, 2020

Celebratory “build your own” processional event at the Philbrook Museum of Art in conjunction with Shadow of Time: Anila Quayyum Agha. Visitors were presented with a wide array of curated materials and interactive stations where they could create their own processional vestments, banners, posters, and even chants. Individuals were allowed to choose their level of engagement and were given time to play and create. Following this, the group was led on a brief mindfulness experience around Anila’s artwork. After the meditation, the group shared their intentions for the procession with the group and embarked on a parade that traversed the exhibition space as well as through the Philbrook Museum galleries.

This event was a part of Philbrook’s Regional Artist Series where Philbrook collaborates with artists to share their practice with the community. Programmatic support was provided by Rachel Ann Dennis, Philbrook Museum Artist Engagement and Experiences Manager.

Video documentation by Kyle Bell with video editing and music by Edgar Fabián Frías.

Nuestrxs Antepasadxs Nos Hablan Directamente (Our Ancestors Speak Directly With Us), 2019

This billboard was a part of Add Space, a project created by artist Richard Zimmerman to bring artworks to public spaces traditionally used for advertising in Tulsa, OK. The first iteration of this project, open from November 4 to December 1, 2019.

Artwork featured on KJRH Channel 2 Tulsa.

Perpetual Flowering, 2019

Solo exhibition at Vincent Price Art Museum curated by Pilar Tompkins Rivas. A unique flower essence was created for the exhibition in collaboration with artist Saewon Oh and made available to attendees to consume and connect with during their time in the exhibition space. The installation included archival photo prints, printed textiles, video projections with frenzied house music, and testimonials from queer and trans artists in both Los Angeles and Tulsa answering the question: What is something you wish you would’ve known growing up? Visitors were also able to write their feelings and thoughts out in a couple of journals provided by Edgar in the exhibition space.

As an extension of the exhibition, Frías hosted a flower essence-making workshop at the museum during the run of the exhibition. Participants were invited to create a flower essence together and were able to take home some of the essence for personal use after the event.

Documentation by Monica Orozco.

Rainbow Transmissions, 2019

Public program for CURRENT:LA FOOD curated by Edgar Fabián Frias, Patrick Mansfield, and Eliza Swann of The Golden Dome School, featuring collaborations with Los Angeles based mystics & artists. This project addresses the deeper personal, social, spiritual, and political ways we can experience food and drink. Unfolding over two events that took place at Pershing Square in Downtown Los Angeles.

Documentation by Josh Vasquez.

Mirroring Resilience, 2018

As the recipient of the COLA (City of LA Department of Cultural Affairs) Artist in Residence Grant, Edgar spearheaded and organized the Mirroring Resilience Artist Intensive. Comprised a series of five day-long workshops co-facilitated by a dynamic team of artists: Jesse Fleming, Saewon Oh, Yunuen Rhi, Asher Hartman, Mariel Pastor, and Edgar themself.

Rooted in the serene environment of La Maida Institute, a holistic and integrative healing center in North Hollywood, the Mirroring Resilience Artist Intensive provided a transformative space for the 24 artists Edgar selected to participate in the residency. Culminating in the Mirroring Resilience Artist Intensive Exhibition on September 22nd, 2018, at La Maida Institute, the event showcased individual and collaborative art projects developed by the participating artists.

This Artist Intensive and Exhibition were made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

Documentation by Josh Vasquez, Kate Alexandrite, and Thaddeus Pedisich.

Give US Home Spider, 2017

Give Us Home Spider (GUHS) was a series of ritual performances reenacting the Wixarika’s sacred journey to Wirikuta, superimposed on the distribution channels of goods arriving at the Port of Los Angeles and moving through predominantly Latino communities in Los Angeles, the Inland Empire, and Coachella Valley.

This immersive installation interweaves documentation of performative rituals, interviews with local community activists, and the artist’s research into their Wixarika heritage with elements of contemporary performance practice. GUHS explores environmental racism, capitalist trade, and the evolving political landscape, aiming to unite individuals affected by these inequities through embodied performance, ritual, and ceremony.

Supported by environmental rights activist Demi Espinoza, sites included Cabrillo Beach, the Tesoro Oil Refinery, the Amazon Distribution Center, Coachella Valley High School, and the TXI Cement Quarry in Bloomington, California. The final ritual, funded by a grant from The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, took place in Edgar Fabián Frías' hometown of Bloomington, near a cement quarry known for releasing hexavalent chromium. Frías and thirteen artists used their bodies and voices in a collaborative ceremony.

GUHS was part of Coastal/Border at Angel’s Gate Cultural Center, an exhibition curated by Raquel Gutiérrez and Martabel Wasserman, focusing on the fortified coast as a border and its impact on Latino communities. Coastal/Border was part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, a Getty-led exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles."