Rocio Graham

Artist in Residence: June 2020 - November 2021

ABOUT ROCIO GRAHAM’S RESIDENCY

Rocío Graham’s residency considered the concept of Art-in-Nature, and the discussion of how to pair art with nature without competing. She found her connection with the urban forest at KOAC and heard the sound of the resident owls and the shimmering of native trees throughout the four seasons. She brought to KOAC the beauty, variety and intricacy of two botanical gardens. Her interaction through performances in the forest took us on a journey of millenary traditions and the history of cultural continuity and tribal sovereignty of the indigenous peoples who live in what today is a diverse and multicultural Mexico.

One rainy day in the summer of 2021, Rocio performed the Deer Dance, a sacred tradition among the Mayo Cahitas and Yoremes, which she learned growing up in Tehueco, in the sparsely inhabited hot coastal desert of Sonora. Since times immemorial, the Deer Dance represents the struggle between good and evil and the effect of hunting to secure a proper relationship with the plant and animal worlds. With their movements mimicking the deer’s, the dancers seek to connect with the flower world, the sea ania, to call ancestors and learn about the indispensable balance with Nature because “the collective connection to the natural world is fragmented and frail,” she says.

Rocio Graham now runs her own art and healing residencies through Santa Rosa Art and Healing.

Rocio Graham’s art residencies welcome poets, writers, visual artists, sound artists, performance artists, and water stewards who are ready to explore water and nature in both physical and spiritual forms, especially those open to non-Western, relational, and decolonial approaches to art and knowledge.

See more of Rocio Graham’s work on her instagram @rociograham