PESO NETO

I’ve been friends with Paiute artist Fawn Douglas for almost ten years now, watching her become a force at UNLV art program, and open the gallery Nuwu Art. I did a 2021 short film about her story that was part of the Smithsonian Institution’s exhibit called “Futures we Dream.”
One might argue this was the beginning of the Native “Futurisms” movement that has become a standard paradigm of artistic reference for contemporary Indigenous artists today. Before this show, there were few people talking about futurism in the current iteration of the genre.
When Fawn approached me to tell a short similar story about Luis Valera-Rico, I thought it would be a great opportunity to jump on another trend I see coming and that’s the exploration of Mexican and Native mixed heritages. Maybe it’s about the conversation around it, as Luis has a distinct identity that plays with Indigenous roots but still is rooted in hard Las Vegas industrial aethetics.
I’m still retooling this story, and hopefully it will inspire a new wave of storytelling that is unapologetic about being mixed race Indigenous, and accessible from new perspectives of Turtle Island.