Mev Luna is a research-based artist whose practice spans performance, installation, video, new media, and text. Through an autoethnographic/anti-ethnographic methodology, their work considers issues of institutional access, incarceration, and how images of marginalized groups are circulated and controlled.

(Contact)

(Awards, Residencies, and Related Activities)

2025

  • Artist in Residence, Mass MoCA, North Adams, MA (forthcoming)

2024

  • Artist in Residence, Cobertizo, Jilotepec, Estado de México, MX

2023

  • Faculty Fellow, Mellon Initiative at The New School, New York, NY

2021

  • Media Assistance Fund, WaveFarm/New York Council on the Arts, New York, NY

2020

  • Queer Arts Mentorship, Mentee, Film, Queer | Art, New York, NY

2019

  • Visual Arts Project Support Grant, Illinois Arts Council Agency, Chicago, IL

2018

  • Individual Artist Grant, Illinois Arts Council Agency, Chicago, IL
  • Grantee, Art Matters Foundation, New York, NY
  • BOLT Residency, Chicago Artist Coalition, Chicago IL

2017

  • SOMA Summer Program Resident, Mexico City, MX

2015

  • Fellowship, The Earl and Brenda Shapiro Center for Research and Collaboration, Chicago, IL

(Selected Exhibitions)

  • 2022 WarpedTerrain, La Nao Galeria, Mexico City, MX (solo)
  • 2020 Empathy Fatigue, Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, IL
  • 2019 Far from the distance we see, Chicago Artists Coalition, Chicago, IL (solo)
  • 2019 EXPO Chicago, Chicago Artists Coalition booth, curated by Sheridan Anderson Tucker (solo)
  • 2019 Dead Future(s), Heaven Gallery, Chicago, IL
  • 2018 Call A Mom Phone Bank, 062 Gallery, Chicago, IL (solo)
  • 2018 Education as the Practice of Freedom, curated by Jasmine Wahi, YoungArts, Miami, FL
  • 2017 SAIC MFA Exhibition, Sullivan Galleries, School of the Art Institute, Chicago, IL
  • 2017 Chicago 9, PRIZM Art Fair, Miami, FL
  • 2017 Between the Real and Utopia, SITE Gallery, School of the Art Institute, Chicago, IL
  • 2017 How to Avoid Trauma, SOMA Headquarters, Mexico City, MX
  • 2017 I Still Wear My Mom’s Brown Sweater, COLLABO, Chicago, IL
  • 2016 Will I See You in the Future? New Blood Festival TEN, Links Hall, Chicago, IL
  • 2016 Scoring and Keeping Score, Defibrillator Gallery, Chicago, IL
  • 2016 Technical Images, Elastic Arts, Chicago, IL
  • 2016 1,422 Miles At a Distance, Threewalls @ Rational Park Gallery, Chicago, IL
  • 2015 Out of Site: Unexpected Encounters of Public Performance, Chicago, IL
  • 2013 Feast of the Beast, MIX: Queer Experimental Film Festival, New York, NY
  • 2011 The Weight of the Shape-Shift Body, Oakapolis Gallery, Oakland, CA (solo)
  • 2011 Nobody Makes Sculpture Now Days…, Oliver Art Center, Oakland, CA
  • 2011 Queer It Yourself: Tools for Survival, SOMArts, San Francisco, CA

(Screenings )

  • 2022 Far from the distance we see, Cine Latine, Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago, IL
  • 2022 Far from the distance we see, Kino Mo
  • 2013 Sharecropping from the Invisibility Suit Series, MIX NYC: Craftivism Curated by Coral Short, New York, NY
  • 2013 Open Your Golden Gates, Film shorts curated by Coral Short, Montreal, CA

(Cinematography and Editing )

  • 2020 Z = |Z/Z•Z-1 Mod 2|-1: Lavender Town Syndrome, Andrew Norman Wilson, Line Producer
  • 2019 The Latest Sun is Sinking Fast, In-progress feature by Melika Bass, Co-Editor
  • 2018 Creature Companions, Melika Bass, Premiere BAM CinemaFest, Editing Consultant

(Lectures, Symposia, and Critiques )

  • 2025 “Para-Protest Practices and Restoring Affinity,” presented at College Art Association 113th Annual Conference, New York, NY, February 12–15, 2025
  • 2025 “Confined Terrain: Imaging Intergenerational Trauma,” presented at the Mellon Initiative for Inclusive Faculty Excellence, May 2-3, 2025 (forthcoming)
  • 2024 Lens of Impact: Queering Design, moderator, sponsored by Swissnex, Parsons School of Design, New York, NY, October 23.
  • 2024 Visiting Critic, Yale School of Art, MFA Painting, New Haven, CT.
  • 2024 Pat Parker/Vito Russo Library Relaunch Event,” Panel with Emily Drabinski, Hal Schrieve, and Gabrielle Williams, moderator, The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center, New York, NY.
  • 2023 “The 68th Annual Flaherty Film Seminar,” Queer World Mending: Conversation between Amina Ross and Wu Tsang, moderator, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York, NY.
  • 2023 Visual Arts & Tech Lecture: Mev Luna, speaker, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ.
  • 2023 Guest Reviewer, Yale School of Art, Painting, New Haven, Connecticut.
  • 2022 13th International SAR Conference for Artistic Research, Bauhaus Universität, Weimar, DE
  • 2021 “2021 ACAID Symposium Must Give Us Pause: Diversity and Sustainability,” Strategies and Resources on Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice from Parsons First Year Program, speaker, Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (virtual)
  • 2018 “DiasporX,” Advance Latine Culture, speaker, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL
  • 2018 Which Ancestors Do We Run Towards?, organizer and moderator, P.O.W.E.R. Project, Art Leaders of Color Network, Comfort Station Logan Square, Chicago, IL
  • 2018 “In-Motion: Performance and Unsettling Borders,” Roundtable Conversation, discussant, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
  • 2018 Theater of the Unexpected, In-Progress: Marcela Torres in Conversation with Mev Luna, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL
  • 2017 Pointing to Between the Real and Utopia: A Performative Panel, moderated by Mechtild Widrich and Máire Witt O’Neil, speaker, SAIC Neiman Center, Chicago, IL.
  • 2017 “Inaugural Berkeley/Stanford Symposium: Not-At-Home, Migration Pilgrimage, and Displacement in Art, Design, and Visual Culture,” Fact Checking My Father, lecture-performance, SFMoMA, San Francisco, CA
  • 2017 Which Ancestors Do We Run Towards? In Conversation with Anna Martine Whitehead, FLEXSpace, Sullivan Galleries, School of the Art Institute, Chicago, IL
  • 2016 Going Off(Shore) Learning Symposium, presenter, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL.
  • 2016 “Shapiro Fellowship Research Symposium,” presenter, International Museum of Surgical Science, Chicago, IL.
  • 2016 Performance Grad Lecture: Mev Luna + Emilio Rojas, speaker, School of the Art Institute of Chicago Performance, Chicago, IL.
  • 2010 “Queer Art & Visual Culture Symposium,” Wurst, Then Queer: Art and the Abject, Helzel Boardroom, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA