Phoenix Art Museum's curator of engagement knows how to create community 'in a genuine way'

In seventh grade, Giovana Aviles was the youngest member selected to participate in the Hispanic Mother-Daughter program at Arizona State University. The early outreach program is designed to increase first-generation attendance for Arizona students and Aviles was honored to be a part of it.

But ASU rescinded the invitation when they realized she didn't have a social security number.

"I think that was the first time I knew that something was different about me," Aviles said. "I knew that I was undocumented, but I didn't really know what that meant. I didn't know what that would bring," Aviles said.

She knew she would have to find an alternate path to get where she wanted to go.

That non-traditional route led her to become the new curator of community engagement at Phoenix Art Museum.

Today, the position allows her to build connections with the Phoenix metro arts community by facilitating workshops, creating events and collaborating with community organizations.

From one big city to another Aviles and her family migrated from Mexico City to the United States when she was 6 years old, hoping for a better life for the next generation, much like her ancestors, who settled in different parts of the Southwest.

"My family has been migrating for many years," Aviles said.

Though she was young enough to adapt to her new life in the U.S. and consider calling it home, Aviles was never able to feel a sense of community amongst her peers.

Her undocumented status precluded her from participating in many of the programs and activities others were able to. She felt left out and unable to participate in multiple activities that required having a social security number or green card.

Her passion for fashion led her to consider attending the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising , or FIDM, in Los Angeles, but she knew she couldn't take the risk of leaving her undocumented family.

Aviles created some educational momentum when she started classes at a community college, but it quickly came to a halt when Prop. 308 , a proposition that classified undocumented students as out-of-state students, tripled her tuition rates.

"At that point, I thought, 'Well, I guess people really want me to be a rebel.'"

Shortly after being forced to leave college, she was introduced to a group of students who started the Arizona Dream Act Coalition.

The DREAM Act was legislation first introduced in 2001, designed to protect undocumented immigrant children who would have been vulnerable to deportation and has failed to pass legislation multiple times over the following two decades.

"That's when I learned how to build community," Aviles said. Being a part of the group allowed her to finally talk about being undocumented, something that was previously considered a taboo topic.

"We were screaming 'undocumented and unafraid' — it was so liberating!" Aviles said.

During this time, she learned how to be a part of community; to unite, to work and to strive for something together.

Continuing to build community at the Phoenix Art Museum Not long after she began working for the Phoenix Art Museum, she became severely ill.

"It's really easy to identify with a job, with a position, with your status, and in that moment, I thought, 'I'm just Gio, and if I weren't to make it out of here, I would leave as just Gio.' I think that was a defining moment in my life in understanding that what I do, I do for my joy, me, my community, and then comes in those other things," Aviles said.

The lesson taught her to connect with herself first and then move outward to others to create community.

It also drove her to think about how to create meaningful spaces for artists who might not have access to grants or certain opportunities. In building her artist collaborations, she thinks about sustainable solutions like scholarships, grants, or artist incubators to provide opportunities that might not otherwise be there for local artists.

"I think it's important to note that the reason why I started to build community is because I grew up undocumented for a very long time," Aviles said, "I don't think if I wasn't in the situation I would have been forced to find myself in the way I did."

"It allowed me to build community in a genuine way," Aviles said.

Recently, the art museum opened its space to " Fruity Night," an LGBTQ+ focused poetry reading night hosted by thems , an art collective.

It was a success, bringing in over 350 people inside and outside of the LGBTQ+ community.

The event came to fruition after six months of Aviles' attendance at thems. poetry reading nights at IceHouse, where she focused on studying and listening to the LGBTQ+ community.

One of the audience members was an elder LGBTQ+ member, who shared with Aviles that she was unaware that these kinds of spaces existed. She told Aviles that she wished spaces like that had been around when she was younger.

"She had never been able to come out to anyone until her daughter was an adult and she could finally tell her," Aviles said.

The conversation stuck with her.

"I think, for me, that's the most meaningful. What are the conversations that are happening here? What are the conversations we can host here that are not happening anywhere else?" Aviles said.

Since then, she understood that she needed to begin creating those spaces for all community members to feel welcome and acknowledged.

"It's a lot of digging and making sure when I'm actually going after a collaboration, I'm being intentional about the time that I'm spending with the community, that I'm understanding the community and what they want, what they're interested in and not me imposing what I or the museum want from them."

Collaboration, intersectionality and connection Aviles was not a trained artist when she put together her first show. She still isn't, she said.

She began putting together art with found objects. It was an intuitive practice for her.

She realized later that she had been emulating a Chicano art form called "rasquachismo," which means making art out of found objects. "It's something we do in our culture anyway- use objects for other things."

She exhibited her work to highlight female leaders within her community. Every time Aviles had a show, she would hire a handful of these inspirational women to model her artwork, sometimes standing for as much as five hours.

That made her realize the importance of collaboration and it's something she constantly works at, especially with her previous colleagues at CALA Alliance . "The reputation that she holds- there's just a huge respect with the way she collaborates with folks," Stephanie Roman, a former colleague when they both interned at CALA Alliance, said.

They will be working together again in January, at the next installment of Amplified, an event that hosts bands from Arizona, Mexico and the Southwest region.

Amplified Vol. 4, is "an audio x visual experience that takes over the Museum's galleries and spaces," focusing on Latino artists.

Her collaborative mindset of highlighting members of the community also includes finding that space of intersectionality when she seeks artists to represent.

A recent show highlighted Juan Francisco Elso , the late Cuban artist. Aviles decided to show his work in collaboration with other representations of Cuban culture. She booked Que Candela , a local salsa/bachata dance company, and In Lak'ech , an LGBTQ+ dance company from Los Angeles.

"I'm always interested in intersection, just thinking about different audiences and perspectives and making sure that we're being inclusive," Aviles said.