Creative People, Creative Places – Creative Technologies on the Mother Road (October)
Sign up to attend here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/creative-people-creative-places-creative-technologies-on-the-mother-road-tickets-1993614178675
A seminar series in honor of the Route 66 Centennial showcasing areas where technology and creativity meet.
UNM Rainforest Innovations is hosting a Creativity and Technology on the Mother Road Seminar Series in honor of the Route 66 Centennial. This seminar series brings together panels of creative people in science, technology, and the arts, highlighting STEAM and showcasing areas where technology and creativity meet.
New Mexico is full of Creative People and Creative Places at the University of New Mexico and beyond. This series serves to build connections and bridges amongst players in the Albuquerque and New Mexico creative ecosystem and engage communities of technologists and creatives whose work and mission build towards entrepreneurial economic development for the state of New Mexico.
This panel focuses on creative people and creative places at the University of New Mexico and in the community. October panelists include:
- Cameron Ward, Founder & Creative Director, Art Off the Rails
- Donatella Davanzo, Ph.D.
- Sandy Johnson, Architect, Designer, Mixed-Media Artist
Lunch will be provided.
Free, no cite parking available for this event.
About the Panelists:
Cameron Ward, Founder & Creative Director, Art Off the Rails
Cameron Ward is a producer, media host, and creative entrepreneur building infrastructure for Indigenous and emerging voices across the American Southwest and beyond. She is a proud member of the Pueblo of Isleta and a graduate student from the University of Southern California, she works at the intersection of media, cultural production, and economic community development within contemporary Indigenous expression.
She is the Founder and Creative Director of Art Off the Rails, a cultural production and strategy company that develops exhibitions, magazine and editorial initiatives, marketing campaigns, and public activations across film, fashion, music, and contemporary art. Operating across New Mexico and California, the company partners with artists, institutions, and creative entrepreneurs to expand visibility and build sustainable creative economies rooted in community.
Donatella Davanzo, Ph.D.
Italian American anthropologist and photo ethnographer, Dr. Donatella Davanzo focuses her documentary work on traditional communities and sites in Italy and New Mexico to preserve their historic, social, and cultural aspects. Donatella is widely recognized for her in-depth exploration and lectures centering on the acequias – centuries-old, communally managed crop irrigation systems in New Mexico. In urban contexts, her recent photographic project “Route 66 Connected” (2022-2026) centers on a documentation of the original properties along Route 66 in New Mexico. Donatella holds a doctorate in American Studies at University of New Mexico and currently leads the Albuquerque Italian Language and Culture Group. Drawing from photographic and anthropological experiences in Italy and in the US, she also carries out didactic and training teachings about visual ethnographic methodologies.
Sandy Johnson, Architect, Designer, Mixed-Media Artist
Sandy is an Albuquerque native who ventured to the West Coast, only to find her way back home to the Land of Enchantment. She is deeply tied to her roots here in New Mexico and has been indulging in her architectural and design ambitions with rigor and enthusiasm for over twenty years. She flourishes in exploring new design approaches but stays grounded to the original principles of architecture: form vs. function and point, line, plane. From the first sketch to final completion, it’s the diligently crafted details that make each architecture and art piece unique.
By day, Sandy is a practicing architect and healthcare facilities planner for the University of New Mexico Hospital, managing new ground-up facilities from first concepts, through design and construction, to final move-in day and first-patient. In her spare time, she explores digital mixed-media art, showcasing architectural depictions of the Southwest Landscape, biophilic themes, and human form. Through her unique artistic approach, architectural lines are choreographed to generate volume, depth, and dynamic movement of light and shadow within the offset of varied materials.