This year, The Latin American and Latina/o/x Studies Program commissioned art for our 2024 Latinx Heritage Month Celebration. Meet the artist whose work blended our program’s spirit of intersectionality and advocacy with their vision of environmental justice and decolonialization.
Natalie “Nat” Noemi Ayala is a Latine teaching artist and small-batch jewelry maker from the South/Southeast side of Chicago whose work is centered around archiving and displaying the historical resilience of low-income, working-class and communities of color both in the U.S and in Latin America through mixed-media arts. Their background and experiences embedded in them the importance of sustainability, and its intersection with the lived experiences of Latine communities.
Natalie graduated from Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy in 2017 and pursued their artistic inclinations at Pitzer College in Claremont, CA, where they received their B.A in Studio Art and Chicanx/Latinx Studies in 2021. Eventually, they returned to Chicago and received an M.A in Museum & Exhibition Studies from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in 2023.
What got you thinking of environmental justice?
Well first, the undergrad I went to specialized in sustainability and environmental analysis. Not that I didn’t have an interest, but at the time I was very very interested in Latine studies, art education, and community art. Not that the environment is not related to art, especially visible now with the work that I do, but it wasn’t on my radar. The people who studied environmental analysis at my school, which was also a PWI, were very much “save the trees, save the whales, and don’t use plastic” types. They were coming in from a traditional white conservatism lens and I just did not rock with that at all. Because of that, I really strayed away from environmental classes because my work was rooted in being anti-racist and abolitionist. It just didn’t click for me.
I actually started working in farmers markets, like in the city [Chicago], and that was a really big thing. Also, coming from a Mexican family- I always thought about those things- coming from family that traditionally cared for the land and doesn’t do that here [United States], working the farmers market made me go “Hmm, this is an interesting space to be a part of”.
I think the thing that stood out the most was the barter system and trade system, which are so big in the farmers market community. Like, I didn’t pay for groceries for like three years. I could just trade with other vendors, and I thought, that’s radical af! So, yeah, I feel like that piqued my interest cause it was a cool thing to think about. Then, I took an environmental class at UIC with my now director Rosa Cabrera and that also engaged me. I don’t know, a lot of things just fell, kind of, started falling into my lap.
Like, I started working for the Chicago Park District and was a part of their cultural series. I applied because I wanted to get more teaching experience in the city since I had been gone for a few years at the west coast. And, I don’t know, it was like suddenly, something clicked. So many of the people I ended up becoming friends with and surrounding myself with, were caring for the world. All of a sudden, I woke up and was like “omg I am surrounded by a cool radical environmental justice world, who are also artists!”
How do you approach art?
When I started working at UIC, I realized that I loved working with college students. I feel like I even saw a transition in the way that I use my art. I went from wanting to teach competent cultural art history to youth using fun hands-on interactive activities, which I definitely still did, to gradually incorporating environmental justice.
Now, I’m at this really cool place where I am using specifically digital art to create, like the graphic I did for you all. I do a lot of zines around topics that are important to me whether that’s environmental or political things.
Additionally, I don’t use a lot of language. Unless it’s like a zine that is explicitly informational, I really don’t. It is really about the art itself, like the colors. Composition is huge for me. For a while I did a lot of film and animation, and I feel like even now that impacted the way that I create so much. Like, my art has a very collage-esque quality. I used to be interested in soundscape and now when I draw, I sit and wonder “hm, what would this sound like?” and that even impacts the colors I use. Also, I’ve been playing with scale too like “should this be on a wall? Should it be a sticker?” I’ve taken a lot from my digital arts background and incorporate it into my work even though I don’t do film.
How does your neighborhood impact relate to environmental justice and your art?
Coming from Slag and the Southeast side, seeing the challenges around General Iron, and just like in general how Covid really exasperated so many aspects of climate change I feel like I went form “Okay, I’m going to do art education, cultural art education, art history- that kind of thing- to really explicitly merging art education with environmental justice.
Eventually, I started volunteering at farms and reading more on the topic and learned I was coming from a sacrifice zone despite not even really realizing that’s even what it was for a long time. Working in the southwest side, I started to notice more the lack of resources the southeast side really has. I noticed everyone is pulling so much money and resources in specific southwest side neighborhoods, which is valid and amazing, but that also means that areas like Oak Park and further south have less and less money going out there. People don’t know the southeast side is a neighborhood even though we are one of the largest Latine populations in Chicago. People forget. And I feel like all of that really cultivated where I am now [UIC’s Latino Cultural Center]. I even ended up changing my master’s capstone to be around food sovereignty and food autonomy from a punk lens.
