natalia ventura (she/her) is a multimedia artist and organizer who lives, works, and hails from San Diego (Kumeyaay land). natalia is a memory worker and dream worker, engaging in the radical act of remembering what once was to move intentionally towards what is yet to come. She leads an inner studio practice that explores her personal experiences as a Mexican-Cuban-American woman, and an outer social practice that engages her community in collective healing of the borderlands. She aims to build a liberated future within and around her through her creative practice.

natalia earned a BA in peace studies with a self-designed minor in aesthetic activism from Chapman University.

grants & residencies

2024 San Diego Made Factory My Creative Journey/Mi Viaje Creativo Residency

2023-2024 California Arts Council Far South/ Border North Grant

2022-2023 Artists at Work Borderlands Initiative Residency

2022 City of Chula Vista Create Chula Vista Grant

2022 The FRONT Arte & Cultura New Native Narratives Art Apprenticeship

exhibitions

2025 (group show) Visions of a Future at The FRONT Arte & Cultura in San Ysidro, California

2025 (group show) Art of Migration and Resistance at Bonita Museum in Bonita, California, Curator and Exhibitor

2024 (group show) Roses to Remember: Honoring San Diego’s Memory Workers at Las Cuatro Milpas in Barrio Logan, California, Curator and Exhibitor

2024 (group show) Cuéntame at The FRONT Arte & Cultura in San Ysidro, California, Curator and Exhibitor

2024 (three-person exhibition) Their Wall, Our Canvas at Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center in San Diego, California, Curator and Exhibitor

2023 (two-person exhibition) La Tierra es Testigo/ The Land is Witness at The FRONT Arte & Cultura in San Ysidro, California

2022 (group exhibition) New Native Narratives at The FRONT Arte & Cultura in San Ysidro, California

2022 (group exhibition) love is an action at The FRONT Arte & Cultura in San Ysidro, California

press

2025 NBC 7 San Diego Bonita exhibit highlights history of Friendship Park

2025 Spectrum News SoCal Museum becomes place of peace amid changing immigration legislation

2024 KPBS The radical act of remembering your past with natalia ventura

2024 The Front Arte & Cultura Podcast Episode 28: Cuentame

2024 USD Kroc School Student Podcast Is the World on Fire?

2022 KPBS 5 Works of art to see in San Diego this summer