Alberto Miguel Vazquez is a Central California Chicano artist in his first year in the Environmental Art + Social Practice MFA program at UC Santa Cruz. His work exists between the Santa Maria Valley, the Central Valley’s Fresno, and the Monterey Peninsula and all involves multidisciplinary approaches to collaborating with the communities in these areas. Alberto Miguel is a Folklorico and Azteca Danzante, Storyteller, Musician, Muralist, Sculptor, Performing Artist, and active community member in each of the spaces he inhabits.

While he may go days, weeks, even months without picking up his paintbrush, he finds other ways to interact with his community be it through music, gardening, or cooking together. It is in this practice of responsive community building through the arts that is central to his research at UCSC. He’s now researching the potentialities behind collective dreaming, of practicing radical inclusivity to envisioning pathways to navigate the changing socio-political landscape he and the collective face. More specifically, his research is investigating what inherent properties exist within natural landscape that can help the collective process grief, joy, and action.