Reanne Estrada

Artist’s Statement

I’m a visual artist based in Los Angeles whose work takes many forms. My poly-disciplinary arts practice explores how bodies negotiate their identities, navigate shared and at times contested spaces, and reimagine their power within and outside existing systems. I do individual projects. I’m Co-Founder & Co-Principal of Public Matters, a social enterprise working within communities of color that uses the arts as a lever for social change. I’m one-third of “Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.” a Filipina-American artist girl gang. I also collaborate with artist C. Ree. My work includes social practice, sculpture, performance, audio tours, ridiculous outfits. I have orchestrated crosswalk choreography to address traffic safety in South LA; explored how fried pork skin can enable placekeeping and post-colonial discourse in Historic Filipinotown; bought and sold lucky dreams in South Korea; developed “Privacy Prophylactics” using “People Who Don’t Exist”; been a professional bridesmaid for hire.

Website: www.publicmattersgroup.com

Selected Public Projects / Exhibitions / Performances
2019-now Slow Jams // University Park (with Public Matters), Los Angeles, CA
A creative call to action for safer streets in partnership with Los Angeles Walks, USC Price School of Public Policy, USC Kid Watch, & USC University Relations
2020 We Are Here, University of Southern California Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena, CA
Guilty Party (with Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.), Wing Luke Museum, Seattle, WA
2019 Love &/Or Fear, curated by LA Freewaves, Los Angeles
Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA
The Chicharrón Chronicles (with Public Matters), Historic Filipinotown, Los Angeles, CA Neighborhood narrative exchange and multimedia walking tours that illuminate the historical, social, and cultural commonalities between immigrants from the Philippines, countries of Central America, and Mexico in one Los Angeles neighborhood.
2018 Ain’t I A Womxn? A Gender’s Promenade (with C. Ree), curated by Anne Bray, Dis…Miss project, LA Freewaves, Los Angeles State Historic Park, Los Angeles, CA
Love & Loss in Hi Fi (with Public Matters), Historic Filipinotown, Los Angeles, CA
A five-part screening and story-gathering series inviting residents to reflect on and respond to their rapidly gentrifying community.
Pedal 2 Parks (with Public Matters), Los Angeles State Historic Park, Los Angeles, CA
Manananggoogle (with Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.), Manila Biennale, Philippines
2017 Irrational Exhibits 10th Anniversary: Mapping the Divide (opening night performance with C. Ree), Los Angeles, CA
Performance Mythodologies (with C. Ree), San Diego Art Institute, San Diego, CA
Boiling Process 5: Mythodologies (with C. Ree), San Diego Art Institute, San Diego, CA
Slow Jams // Temple Street (with Public Matters), Historic Filipinotown, Los Angeles, CA
A creative call to action for safer streets in partnership with Los Angeles Walks, Pilipino Workers Center, Gabba Gallery for LADOT’s Vision Zero Initiative
2016 Public Art Billboard Installation (with C. Ree), Hongcheon Bus Terminal, Hongcheon, South Korea
Hongcheon International Fan Club Meeting #1 (with C. Ree), Hongcheon Bus Terminal, Hongcheon, South Korea
East Seoul Public Bus Terminal Transmission #1 (with C. Ree), East Seoul Bus Terminal, Seoul, South Korea
2015 Culture of Borders, In Search of Regional Pathways (with C. Ree), Hwachonmyeon Town Hall, Basement Gallery, South Korea
Pink Factory Open House (with C. Ree), Hongcheon, South Korea
2014 Drive-By Cinema, (with Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.) Pac Arts Film, San Diego, CA
The Truth About Flavor (with Public Matters, South LA, CA
2013 Essential: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Sweeney Art Gallery, University of California at Riverside, Riverside, CA
This/That: New Stories from the Edge of Asia (with Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.), San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA
The Manananggoogle On-Boarding Experience (with Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.), Global Fund for Women, part of The Long Conversation, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA
2012 Troubling Borders: Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora, Sweeney Art Gallery, University of California at Riverside, Riverside, CA
!Navilandia al Sur, Buenos Aires, Argentina
A project with homeless activists, hospital workers and patients, tango dancers, shantytown teens, cinema students, and local artists and seven California artists and CheLA, a local cultural center, to collectively represent themselves and their neighborhood through the redistribution of thousands of repurposed Christmas ornaments left abandoned in CheLA’s space throughout the surrounding community. 
2010-2014  Market Makeovers: Proyecto MercadoFRESCO (with Public Matters), East LA & Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, CA
2010 Minimum Yields Maximum, Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles, CA
2008 Contemporarities: The Contemporary Museum, Neiman Marcus, Honolulu, HI
2007 Humor Us, Los Angeles Municipal Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
To Hedonopolis from Melancolony, Thatcher Gallery, University of San Francisco, CA
Galleon Trade, ABS-CBN Galleries, Manila, Philippines
Reanne Estrada, OHT Gallery, Boston, MA (solo)
Nineteen Going on Twenty, The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, HI
2006 Contradictory Impulses, Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, IN (solo)
2005 Cut, Lizabeth Oliveria Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (solo)
Bay Area Now 4 (with Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA
2004 Change of Address, Lizabeth Oliveria Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2 1/2: Art at the Corner of Two and Three Dimensions, San Francisco State University Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2003 The Allure of Obsolescence, Lizabeth Oliveria Gallery, San Francisco, CA (solo)
Chicago Art Fair, Lizabeth Oliveria Gallery, Chicago, IL
Scope Art Fair/New York, Lizabeth Oliveria Gallery, New York, NY
San Francisco Art Fair, Lizabeth Oliveria Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Honeymoon Suite Nothings (with Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.),
Lizabeth Oliveria Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2002 Perez Prado: Unauthorized Collaborations, A.O.V. Gallery, San Francisco, CA
(Un)Common Ground, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose, CA
There’s a Hair in My Cake! Mercer Union, Toronto, Canada
2001 Look Closely, John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI (solo)
Altoids Curiously Strong Collection, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY
Mail Order Brides: Divorced from Reality (with Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.),
Lizabeth Oliveria Gallery, Oakland, CA
2000 Mail Order Brides: The Untold Story (with Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.), San Francisco Art Commission Chinatown Community Arts Program Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1999-2000  Altoids Curiously Strong Collection (travelling exhibition to venues in New York City,
Las Vegas, Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles)
1999 “Home is Where the **art Is,” Museum Pieces: Bay Area Artists Consider the DeYoung (with Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.), M. H. De Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA
Mabuhay-Our Stories Old and New: Bay Area Pilipino Amerikan Artists, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA (with Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.)
1998 Sino Ka? Ano Ka? San Francisco State University Gallery, San Francisco, CA
San Francisco Babaylan, Museo ng Maynila, Manila, Philippines
San Francisco-Manila Sister City Exhibition. Part of Mayor Willie Brown’s Cultural &
Trade Visit to the Philippines
The More You See, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA (solo)
A Public Service Message about Your Private Life, (with Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.) Market Street Art in Transit Project, San Francisco Art Commission
1997 Pinays on Wheels, (with Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.) performance with beauty queens on motorcycles & Bridemobile), Lunar New Year Parade, Oakland, CA 

Film / Video
2015  DIS…MISS, Freewaves Video Commission (with Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.), Los Angeles, CA Five short videos addressing gendered reactions to traditional upbringings and current culture.
2011  Out the Window  (with Public Matters) curated by LA Freewaves
Short videos about, by and in Los Angeles, presented in the unusual context of the Los Angeles County Metro bus system on Transit TV, creating a mosaic of the many social, cultural, economic and creative layers of a complex American city.
2010  San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, San Francisco, CA (with Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.)

Awards
2022 Fellowship for Visual Artists, California Community Foundation
2020 LA2050, Goldhirsh Foundation, 2020 (with Public Matters)
2017 California Council for the Humanities (CCH) (with Public Matters)
California Arts Council (with Public Matters)
2014 LA2050, Goldhirsh Foundation, 2014 (with Public Matters)
2010 California Council for the Humanities (CCH) (with Public Matters)
MacArthur-HASTAC Digital Media + Learning Award 2010 (with Public Matters)
2008 MacArthur-HASTAC Digital Media + Learning Award 2008 (with Public Matters)
2005 2005 Durfee Foundation Artists’ Resource for Completion Grant
2003 2002-03 Artist Fellowship Award for the Visual Arts, California Arts Council
2002 Wallace Alexander Gerbode Visual Art Award 2002 (three purchase awards) 

Residencies
2016 Pink Factory (with C. Ree), Seoul and Hongcheon, South Korea
2015 Pink Factory (with C. Ree), Hongcheon, South Korea
2007 Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, Umbria, Italy
2004 Connecting Communities Residency, John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI
2002 Artist Residency (with Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.), McColl Center for Visual Art, Charlotte, NC 

Collections
Altoids Curiously Strong Collection, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY
The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, HI
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA
Oakland Museum of California
City of San Diego (with C. Ree)
Sweeney Art Gallery, University of California at Riverside
Various Private Collections 

Selected Bibliography
Anne Bray, Dis . . . Miss Gender, MIT Press, forthcoming 2023.
In/With/For the Public, Art Practical, 2020.
Gina Velasco, “Performing the Filipina Mail Order Bride,” Queering the Global Filipina Body, University of Illinois Press, 2020.
Henry Jenkins and Colin Maclay, “Episode 75: Play as a Precursor to Participation, with Reanne Estrada and Benjamin Stokes,” How Do You Like It So Far?, November 5, 2020.
Teena Apeles, ”Asian American Activists to Watch,” PBS SoCal, May 13, 2020. https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/asian-americans/asian-american-activists-watch
Irrational Exhibits: 2002-2019, catalog.
Anu Vikram,“Divide//Conquer: Artists Confront the Gentrification of Urban Space,” in Decolonizing Culture, Art Practical Press, 2017.
Featured art, Jan Bernabe, Kaura Kina, Queering Contemporary Asian American Art, University of Washington Press, 2017.
Christine Bacareza Balance, “The Serious Work of Karaoke,” Tropical Renditions, Duke University Press, 2016.
Thea Quiray Tagle, “To Organize The World…,” Centerforartandthought.org, 2015.
Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, Lan Duong, Mariam Lam, Kathy Nguyen, Troubling Borders: An Anthology of Art & Literature by Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora, University of Washington Press, 2014.
“Social Practice,” Artbound, Season 5, Episode 7, 2014.
An Xiao Mina, “The Corporate Vampires of San Francisco,” Hyperallergic, October 22, 2013.
Nellie Bowles, “Arts Troupe Satirizes All-Encompassing Tech,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 15, 2013.
Gina Velasco, “Performing the Filipina ‘Mail Order Bride’,” Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, Routledge Press, 2013.
Sue Bell Yank, “Public Matters Market Makeover Smackdown!,” KCET: Artbound, October 19, 2012.
John Mone, “Market Makeovers Transform Food Deserts,” Associated Press, April 17, 2012.
Sue Bell Yank, “TACTICAL ORGANIZING: The Instituent Art Practice of Public Matters,”  Public Address, northern.lights.mn, June 21, 2011.
Eric Estuar Reyes, “Fictions of Return in Filipino America,” Social Text 107, vol. 29, no. 2, Duke University Press, Summer 2011.
Leah Ollman, “Art Review: Minimum Yields Maximum at Monte Vista,” Los Angeles Times, March 5, 2010.
Jeremy Rosenberg, “City/Culture: To Them, The Public Matters (Part II),” Next American City, August 27, 2010.
Jeremy Rosenberg, City/Culture: To Them, The Public Matters (Part I), Next American City, August 20, 2010.
Alissa Walker, Design is a Verb: “Empowering Teens to Green the Food Desert,” GOOD, November 30, 2009.
Jeremy Rosenberg, “Hi Fi’s Hi-Tech Histories,” KCET.org, October 7, 2009.
Sarita See, “Reanne Estrada, Identity, and the Politics of Abstraction,” The Decolonized Eye: Filipino American Art and Performance, University of Minnesota Press, 2009.
Shaya Tayefe Mohajer, “Urban Areas Struggle to Find Grocers,” Associated Press, December 18, 2008.
Joyce Slaton, “A Curious Betrothal,”, SF Weekly, November 26, 2008, p 28.
Mark Johnson, “The Writing on The Wall,” Hyphen Magazine, Issue 13, Winter 2007, p 40-45.
DeWitt Cheng, “To Hedonopolis, From Melancolony at Thacher Gallery,” Artweek, November 2007.
Cheeko Ruiz, “Modern Day Galleon Trade Sets Sail,” Philippine Star, August 19, 2007.
Pedro Dumancas, “Galleon Trade: Fil-Am Exodus Back to the Motherland,” Philippine Inquirer, August 6, 2007.
Cate McQuaid, “Drawing on New Technology,” Boston Globe, February 08, 2007.
Greg Cookland, “Ladda, Estrada, Shubuck, Miracle 5,” New England Journal of Aesthetic Research, February 22, 2007.
S. L. Berry, “Tape, Erasers, Art,” Indianapolis Star, February 10, 2006.
Caryn Coleman, “Around Town: Los Angeles,” www.nyfa.org, September 2005.
Renee Macalino Rutledge, “Having Your Art and Eating It Too,” Filipinas Magazine, November 2005, p 64-66.
Katy Ansite, “Waiter: There’s a Hair in my Soap,” Kitchen Sink, vol. 3, issue 2, Spring 2005, p 75-79.
Colin Berry, “2 1/2 at SFSU Fine Arts Gallery,”Artweek, November 2004, p 13-14.
Lindsey Westbrook, “The Allure of Obsolescence,” San Francisco Bay Guardian, vol 37, no 29, April 16-22, 2003, p 87.
Allison Bing, “The Allure of Obsolescence,” www.sfgate.com, April 18-25, 2003.
Allison Bing, “Perez Prado: Unauthorized Collaborations,” Artweek, vol 34, no 1, February 2003, p 15.
Lindsey Westbrook. “Perez Prado: Unauthorized Collaborations,” San Francisco Bay Guardian, vol 37, no 15, January 8-14, 2003, p 77.
David Buuck, “’(un)Common Ground’ at SJICA,” Artweek, vol 33, no 8, October 2002, p 19-20
Leslie Umberger, Reanne Estrada: Look Closely, catalog, John Michael Kohler Art Center, 2002.
James Auer, “Kohler Show Comes Alive with a Variety of Visuals,” The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, November 07, 2001.
“New Museum of Contemporary Art,” The New Yorker, January 29, 2001.
Megan Wilson, “Critic’s Pick,” San Francisco Bay Guardian, vol 34, no 52, September 27.2000, p 110.
Altoids 1999 Curiously Strong Collection, catalog, 1999.
“Minty Fresh,” New York Daily News, Today in New York, October 25, 1999, p 21. 

Education
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
BA Magna Cum Laude, Visual and Environmental Studies, 1992