In a South Bay park, young artists foster community and environmental awareness

For eight years, Natalia Aguirre has lived in the South Bay. But it wasn’t until this year that the 19-year-old artist visited the Otay Valley Regional Park.

“I never realized that we have something like this in the South Bay,” she said.

Aguirre is among seven “youth apprentices” who participated in Lands + Lenses, a public art program supported by a state grant. The artists, ranging from 14 to 24 years old, held immersive workshops and put on an exhibit to showcase environmental issues impacting southern San Diego County. They focused on the Otay Valley Park, an open site that has been used at times for illegal dumping, and is in close proximity to the Tijuana River sewage crisis.

The program was created by Outside the Lens in collaboration with the nonprofit Casa Familiar and the Institute for Public Strategies. Funding was covered by an $85,000 grant from the state’s Arts in California Parks program.

Each of the youth apprentices was paid nearly $1,700 for their participation in the program. The group was led by an educator team comprising two media arts educators from Outside the Lens, a guest artist and a communications specialist. From March to May, Land + Lenses held several public workshops in Otay Valley Park and at Camp Surf YMCA at Imperial Beach, where residents made art, took photos, wrote poetry and spoke about their communities.  

The youth apprentices led the workshops and were tasked with inviting the public to participate. Toward the end of the program, they each created an original piece of artwork inspired by their time in Land + Lenses. 

The exhibit, which was held at The Fronte Arte y Cultura in San Ysidro, featured works by the apprentices, but also works from the public workshops that were held, including portraits taken at Otay Valley Park and cyanotypes made at Imperial Beach. 

For Aguirre, the program was an opportunity to merge her interests in both art and environmentalism. “I couldn’t really express myself in my household,” said Aguirre. “Art was kind of like the form that I took and it helped me get through a lot of hard times.” 

Aguirre’s piece, titled “Prenda del Alma,” was inspired by Chicomoztoc, the mythical origin place of several Mesoamerican cultures. The mixed-media piece featuring foam, fabric, and trash collected in the South Bay represents death, rebirth and the interconnectedness between humans and our environment. 

“We can be like agents that cause harm to our environments, but we can also be motivators for change,” said Aguirre.

Mackenzie Miller, 24, another apprentice with Land + Lenses, created a piece called “Embodied Ecologies.” The piece featured microscopic images of the black sage plant, which is native to Southern California. 

Miller, who is not from the South Bay, was drawn to the program in part because she studied environmental science at the University of San Diego. 

“I wanted to help create a space for people to practice interacting with nature and those climate issues and that climate anxiety that I’m sure everybody has,” said Miller, who says not being from the area made it easier for her to spot environmental issues there. “It can be anxiety-inducing to focus on the negatives. So, art making is a way to shift the perspective.”

At an April workshop, the apprentices and the public visited Imperial Beach, where they created signage calling for environmental action. The beach has been closed for years at a time due to sewage flowing into the Pacific Ocean from the Tijuana River. 

“It was just very telling that when you give people the tools to do these things, like professional cameras, learning how to do compost, how to do photo transfers, how to make a protest sign, how to take a portrait, all of these things that usually feel very inaccessible were suddenly right there and very easy to understand,” said Eiram Torres Laguna, one of the media educators with the program. “It was just very wonderful to be able to give people those tools.”

Luisa Martinez Villalón, a communications specialist with the program, said now that the project has ended the group will reconvene to hold a reflection session about their experience. She also said Outside the Lens is open to applying for the grant again. 

“A lot of people don’t put that level of trust on young folks,” said Martinez. “They can build beautiful work, let’s give them more resources.”