What Happen Was
2020
New Orleans, Louisiana
Marta Rodriguez Maleck is an artist and filmmaker who works in audio, video, and installation, engaging people in participatory methods of storytelling that encourage communal accountability, healing, and understanding. Her work explores how much agency we have, as individuals and communities, in narrating our own experiences. By creating environments conducive to self-reflection, she explores the roles we play in our interactions with one another and where the intersections of our identities and prejudices lie. Rodriguez Maleck has shown publicly and institutionally at the NOMA and Canal Place Mall in New Orleans, Atlanta CAC, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Pensacola Museum of Art, Hyde Park Art Center, Baby Blue Gallery, and Anas Galley in Chicago, AnyTime Dept in Cincinnati, and Ground Floor Gallery in Brooklyn. Marta hosts a bi-monthly podcast on Montez Press Radio in New York, promoting solidarity through challenging conversations. Rodriguez Maleck lives and works in New Orleans.
Joan Mitchell Center Residency, 2021
Because ‘having challenging conversations’ is at the heart of my practice, each installation begins with a communal invitation rooted in communication. Participants are invited to discuss a myriad of topics: moments they felt stereotyped or stereotyped someone, miscommunication, cancel culture, communities at odds, what solidarity could look like, and what transformative justice can look like. These conversations are recorded, transcribed, and archived to be used as the subjects for ongoing projects.”