Cristina Ferrigno Combined Media
Bio
Cristina Ferrigno is a Colombian born, Brooklyn raised artist currently based in Queens. With a BFA from MICA in 2009, she is now pursuing her MFA with a focus on Social Practice Art at Queens College. Her work tackles her personal and philosophical questions of identity, exploring the feeling of cultural “inbetween-ness” as a transnational adoptee. She uses photographic processes, archive building and community engagement to create combined media works and long term interdisciplinary projects.​
Artist’s Statement
My work is a way for me to tackle the personal and philosophical questions of identity. The feeling of “in between–ness,” as a transnational adoptee, manifests in my themes of preservation, memory and heritage. I’m drawn to photographic processes, which serve as a family archive or documentation of personal history. I work with original official documents, family photos and found items to build a library of images and objects, making motifs and a visual lexicon from which I create combined media works and long term interdisciplinary projects.
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I’ve always had a penchant for collecting, a practice that I’ve incorporated into my art-making. In my recent project Walking Archive, I walk with intention through neighborhoods that hold personal significance and I pick things up, collecting as I meander and creating an archive that serves like a memory. I’m attracted to items from the natural world as well as man made things that seem to hold a history. I’m interested in what these objects and places can divulge about identity, as indicators of class, gender, age, race and so on. Maybe they communicate a cultural significance that is beyond my comprehension. I enjoy fabricating micro-narratives for these items and the photographs I find and take-- assigning value and significance to mundane things. There is a prominent feeling of loss that runs through my work, understanding urban spaces, discarded objects and pieces of nature as things that go through cycles similar to that of life and death, I lean into those feelings of nostalgia but also of grief.
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Education
2019 - MFA in Studio Arts, Social Practice (Est. Graduation 2021) Queens College. Queens, NY
2009 - BFA Maryland Institute College of Art. Baltimore, MD.
2008 - Studio Art Centers International. Florence, Italy
Two Person Exhibitions
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2016 - Ireland: Land Sea Air New York Irish Center, Long Island City, NY (With Spencer Moore)
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Group Exhibitions
2021- Art As Social Action: 10 Years of Social Practice Queens, (Published Zine/Public Programming) The Queens Museum, Flushing, NY
2020 - Virtual Topologies, Queens College MFA Exhibition, Field Projects (Online), New York, NY
2019 - MFA Icebreaker Show, Queens College, Queens, NY
2019 - Latinx, La Bodega Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2018 - Sentades en Silencio, New Women Space, Brooklyn, NY
2018 - Identity MICA Rosenberg Gallery, Baltimore, MD
2018 - RE: RE: Patterns La Bodega Art Space & Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2018 - Se Aculilló? | la sutura tierna, AS220 Gallery, Providence, RI
2018 - Latinx, LIC Arts Open, The Factory, Long Island City, NY
2018 - The Greatest Show on Earth, Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2017 - Botanical The Local Project Art Space, Long Island City, NY
2017 - Forest No. 2 Hub 17, Staten Island, NY
2017 - Long Island City Arts Open "Micro Solo Show" Plaxall Gallery, Long Island City, NY
2017 - Animalia The Local Project Art Space, Long Island City, NY
2017 - Through The Rabbit Hole 2 Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2016 - The Queens CorrespondAnce School [did not die] Academic Gallery, Long Island City, NY
2015 - Small Works Showcase Greenpoint Gallery, Brooklyn NY
2011 - Black & White BWAC, Brooklyn NY
2011 - Convergence BWAC, Brooklyn NY
2010 - Nailed BWAC, Brooklyn NY
2010 - Lineage BWAC, Brooklyn NY
2009 - BFA Thesis Exhibition, MICA, Baltimore, MD
2008 - A Grain of Rice Lumenhouse Gallery, Brooklyn NY
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Curatorial Projects
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2019 - Latinx, La Bodega Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2018 - Latinx, LIC Arts Open, The Factory, Long Island City, NY
2016 - Ireland: Land Sea Air at The New York Irish Center, Long Island City, NY (In collaboration with Spencer Moore)
2015 - Julio's House artist Orestes Gonzalez, The Adorama Corporate Gallery, New York, NY
2015 - New York Stories artist Jay Fine, The Adorama Corporate Gallery, New York, NY
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Exhibitions Management
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2015 - Human Nature artists Erica Simone & Jaci Berkopec, The Adorama Corporate Gallery, New York, NY
2015 - Gowanus Wild artist Miska Draskoczy, The Adorama Corporate Gallery, New York, NY
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Other Projects
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2017- Present - Breaking the Code After School and Camp Coding Instructor with the Girl Scouts of Greater New York, NY, NY
2017 - Zine Fair, Artist & Craftsman Supply LIC, Queens NY
2016 - Present - Executive Director of 7 Line Collective, Queens, NY
2015 - A Conversation with Nancy Nowacek, The Adorama Event Space, New York, NY
2015 - Joanne McNeil Manipulated Images & the Concept of Fake, Adorama Event
Space, New York, NY
2015 - Group Discussion: The Life and Work of Vivian Maier, Adorama Gallery, New York, NY
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Grants & Awards
2019-2020 QC Scholars Scholarship Award
2005- 2009 MICA Academic Honors Scholarship. MICA NAHS Scholarship, MICA Trustee Scholarship
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Press & Publications
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Ferrigno, Cristina All Things Must Pass: An Activity Zine For Grief. Queens, NY: The Queens Museum, March, 2021. Print Zine
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Claire Kim “Short List Curator Claire Kim” BRIC Arts Media, March 16, 2018.
BRIC Short List Curator: Claire Kim
Nakazawa, Natalia Unarchiving Woven Histories: A Collection of Stories and Quilt Squares. Queens, NY: The American Folk Art Museum’s Self-Taught Genius Gallery, October, 2018. Print Zine
Latinos Who Lunch Podcast, produced by Dr. Emmanuel Ortega and Justin Favela. January 31, 2019 “Episode 110: Jasmine Chavez Helm” http://www.latinoswholunch.com/episodes/2019/1/31/jasmine-chavez-helm
Tea with Queen and J Podcast, produced by “a black girl named Naima and a black girl named Janicia” February 12, 2019 “#913 Blackface Black History Month”
https://soundcloud.com/tea-with-queen-and-j/193-blackface-history-month
The Art People Podcast, produced by Justin Favela. May 24, 2019