KATIE AVILA LOUGHMILLER
(She/Her)
Interdisciplinary: social practice, installation, film, digital, writing, & performance
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Katie Avila Loughmiller, raised in Boston and now based in Milwaukee, WI, is an interdisciplinary social practice artist, writer, educator, curator and activist. Avila Loughmiller received her undergraduate degree at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University and completed her Master of Fine Arts degree in the Public Practice program at Otis College of Art & Design. In the last 5 years, she has founded 3 different collectives: LUNA (Latinas Unidas en las Artes), a Latinx artist collective where she has curated 5 gallery exhibitions; Heard Space, a multi-media performing arts collective led by women of color; and most recently, Milwaukee Action Intersection, a social justice organization rooted in a mutual aid practice. Avila Loughmiller also co-hosts a comedy radio show, We Heard We’re Funny, on local Milwaukee radio station, Riverwest Radio. Her individual artistic practice has allowed her to perform across the country and also participate in artist residencies, most notably at Santa Fe Art Institute, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center and Wildacres Residency Program. Avila Loughmiller has taught art and theatre in various educational settings in South Africa, New York City, Los Angeles, Boston and currently teaches in the theatre department at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Most recently, Avila Loughmiller joined a small team working on a feature-length documentary film about art critics as the Coordinating Producer
ARTIST STATEMENT
My entire life has been a balancing act. I was born in one country and raised in another. I straddle between being included and consistently "othered." I have hungered for belonging while resisting the status quo. My work lives in the in-between as well. I dance between social sculpture and physical sculpture; performance and visual art. I find humor in the experiences that have made me feel awkward, confused or even pained. I don't choose a box to fit in for anyone else's comfort. I take an interdisciplinary approach to dissect, uncover and collage together my cultural complexity and female identity while deeply immersing myself in collaboration, community and site specific work. Through my work as a social practice artist, I dare to take up space and create while living in a society that strives to erase my culture and my roots, that pays me 46% less than my white male counterparts, and that refuses to consider my work worthy unless it shows in white owned/run institutions. So I resist. And fight. And I persevere by carving out inclusive spaces through collective work and by defining myself and my art on my own terms.
