The Santa Fe Dreamers Project, a non-profit offering free legal services to immigrants, has what amounts to an artist-in-residence this year. hazel batrezchavez, an MFA student at the University of New Mexico, is one of four young artists selected this year by the Santa Fe Arts Institute to work with local government and non-arts organizations, helping to increase the organizations' community engagement. It's called the Story Maps Fellowship.
After spending several months working closely with the Dreamers Project and its clients, hazel will start planning a collaborative artwork that looks at the stories of individuals who have been forced to migrate from their homelands. "What's going on in our southern border right now is extremely important to me, and it feels like art is the place where you can really challenge things."
In this more complete version of the conversation, hazel talks in greater detail about her SFAI fellowship and about how her work with the Dreamers Project will fit into her upcoming final year at UNM.
