We are excited to welcome Claudia Arana to the Images team! Claudia will support all Images Festival and year-round communications from a care-based approach where artists, partners and communities are thoughtfully, adequately supported, and represented.
Claudia Arana is a Cultural Connector and Independent Curator, whose practice is constantly informed by anti-oppression frameworks and intersectional kindness. As a person of colour with a Mestizo background in Canada, she continues to develop socially and politically viable artistic platforms around notions of allyship and accompliceship through radical gestures of care.
She studied Art Theory and Critical Thinking at the School of Visual Arts and Advanced Critique at the International Centre of Photography, both in New York. Recently she worked with the City of Toronto as the ArtworxTO West Hub Curator for the 2021-2022 Year of Public Art in Toronto, where she delivered HOME(LAND), a multimedia exhibition series that examines how concepts of land intersect and dialogue with the fluid and shifting characteristics of identity, belonging, and home across and between races, regions, cultures and nations. She has collaborated with arts organizations and institutions like the Gibson House Museum, Toronto Arts Foundation, Luminato, Sur Gallery, Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence, Muse Arts, Arts Etobicoke, and North York Arts, while working closely with various government stakeholders, such as the City of Toronto Newcomer Office and the Indigenous Affairs Office.
Claudia’s practice embraces intersectionality as a form of kindness and she strives to maintain this approach through the Images Festival Communications Manager role.
“On behalf of Images Festival, I am thrilled to welcome Claudia as our new Communications Manager,” shared Samuel La France, Images Festival’s Executive Director. “The depths of Claudia’s experience as an arts practitioner, alongside the care she has shown in nurturing and sharing critical cultural knowledge in her collaborations with so many other organizations and institutions, resonate deeply with our organization’s values and cultural mission. We are grateful to have Claudia's sensitivity and expertise to inform the development and renewal of strategies to bring greater visibility and attention to the artists, partners, and creative communities whose work is at the core of what we do. We invite you to share our enthusiasm in welcoming Claudia to the Images Festival team!”
Please feel free to contact Claudia and say hello! You can reach her at press@imagesfestival.com or on Instagram at @claudiaaranab.