2023 MOONBLOOD Summer Fellowship
Boss Witch Productions is committed to service and support of our community.
In honor of our deep love and appreciation for artist Ron Athey, we are excited to announce our inaugural MOONBLOOD Summer Fellowship. An iconic creator with an incredible legacy and body of work, Ron Athey provides inspiration, leadership, and mentorship to a community of artists across the world. His work has helped open doors for generations of creatives, especially queer and trans artists, and those working in disciplines traditionally regarded as transgressive. We created the Boss Witch MOONBLOOD Summer Fellowship in honor of Ron, celebrating everything he has taught us about building community and how we would like to give back to these systems of support.
The Boss Witch MOONBLOOD Summer Fellowship offers organizational support by connecting established artists with supportive artist fellows in the Los Angeles area to provide logistical and administrative assistance during the summer months. This award is available annually by internal nomination and availability of funding.
OUR 2023 FELLOWSHIP IS AWARDED TO ARTIST Catherine herrera.
Artist fellow in 2023 is Pablo Chong Herrera.
Over the last 30 years, Catherine Herrera has explored her family history in the context of the times they lived and the legacy they left her to carry with responsibility and contributions to build up the next generations. Catherine's films include her present feature documentary film, Martins Beach, which follows the fight to reopen a Bay Area coastal beach where generations of her family have spent significant time, closed by the new owner who closed off public access, interrupting the transmission of coastal knowledge and co-existence. The Martins Beach Project expands the impact of the documentary through a Coastal Stories Map and Immersive Coastal Dome Art Installation developed for release with the 50th Anniversary of the California Coastal Act. In June 2023, The Martins Beach Project was selected as a Creative Corps Fellow with the 18th Street Arts Center that makes possible creating a prototype installation, filming and photographing the coastal stories, contributions and stewardship of unheard voices and people, to create an inclusive map of California's iconic coastal culture. Martins Beach is a fiscally-sponsored film of the International Documentary Association, selected in May 2023 for a Puffin Foundation Film Grant, and with a year-long documentary Unlock Her Potential Mentorship with Alexandra Marks Lipsitz. The project has also received a UCLA National Arts & Disability Center Grant and Directing and Project Workshops through Sundance Collab scholarships. In 2008, Catherine's right arm nerve was damaged in a needle aspiration injury during a blood draw that traveled to her spine, impacting her mobility and causing a rare condition that led Catherine away from indy solo filmmaking into the great position to now work with a stellar crew in collaboration to bring this personal and universal story to life. In September 2023, selections from Catherine's Landless Indian Series (2001-2021) will be exhibited in Landscapes of Survivance: Contemporary Native Photography at the Santa Clara Gallery.
Pablo is a 4th generation photographer who has taken photos since he was was a kid, and traveled with his mom when she was working as a photojournalist. He enjoys using photography for storytelling, and documenting nature and the human experience, drawing on his love of history and travel. Pablo was born in Mexico City, returning and growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, attending high school in Canada with classmates from around the world. His experience in archival organization and research will be of invaluable contribution, this fellowship making possible the long process of archiving so much historical photographs and movies. Pablo will be an invaluable contributor, particularly with his knowledge of the family, tribal and community context for these photographs. His grandfather played a huge role in his life, and this project is meaningful to him for the opportunity to honor his ancestors and family, with the aim of making available the archive for future research, scholarship and exhibiting. This fellowship will offer training and education in exhibit preparation as a young photographer, and commissions him for a 10-photo series reflecting on his fellowship experience. Pablo's professional media experience includes: Contributing Photographer/Videographer: Talking Roots, Trees of Witness 2020–2021 with the partners Montalvo Art Center, Bandaloop Vertical Dance Group and the Confederation of Ohlone People; Videographer: Bridge Walkers: Sacred Sites of the Bay Area short film and 3-screen video installation; Actor: Guadalupe Arts Film Festival Trailer; Pablo lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, is a proud Cal graduate, and when not photographing, plays on a men’s rugby team in San Francisco.