About Javier Cortez / Elephant Wo-men
Elephant Wo-men is a musical project that aims to capture some of the vortexes of consciousness and realities that human beings experience in their personal inner development. With influences ranging from Mexican folk music, musique concrete, and hip hop, Elephant Wo-men develops melodies, rhythms, and lyrics that attempt to express the strong and complex emotions that transcend words.
Elephant Wo-men's sound experiments include their EP "Canto de mi árbol en el incendio" (published by At At Records). This EP features a soundtrack that can be listened to while reading the book with the same title by poet Gerardo Grande. Their most recent explorations not only express the feeling of the current reality, but also open a window of hope that proposes transformation into new possibilities.
The Spring 2026 Residency is made possible with the financial support of our generous donors and the City of San Diego Commission for Arts & Culture.
SPRING 2026:
Here & There welcomes Spring 2026 resident, Tijuana based musician Javier Cortez of Elephant Wo-men.
This spring's residency is in collaboration with San Diego based recording studio Rarefied Recording, where founder Roy Silverstein will record and mix songs written and performed by Elephant Wo-men in collaboration with San Diego musicians over a week in the studio. Here & There will host a Listening Party to share the music recorded by Elephant Wo-men during the residency at The Front Arte y Cultura on Saturday, April 18th.
This is the 5th edition of Here & There's residency : an ongoing exchange connecting the creative communities of San Diego and Tijuana through art and design.
Mask by @maxera.mask / Photography: @braulio_lam
Here and There welcomes Spring 2025 residentAnnie Alarcón, Tijuana based artist/designer and co-founder and creative director of Lustre Estudio, a Tijuana based studio which builds community around ceramics through workshops and classes.
Through a month-long immersion connecting with San Diego based design projects and studios, Annie will explore new areas of her practice, sharing a presentation of her work at Bread & Salt Saturday, April 12.
This is part of an ongoing exchange that follows a two-week residency in Tijuana in fall 2024, which hosted San Diego based artist/designer Christine Lee, in a dialogue examining design’s potential for creative innovation and positive change.
spring 2025:
Photo credit: Jeovanna Pérez
About Annie Alarcón
As co-founder and creative director of Lustre Estudio, Annie Alarcón began a new path five years ago with the vision to build community around ceramics, launching both the studio and a personal practice centered around ceramics and ikebana. Moved by creative projects that ignite an inner fire, she draws inspiration from the natural processes of ceramics, the desert landscapes of Baja, and the ancestral knowledge contributed by the Mexican artisans with whom she has studied, including those at the National School of Ceramics in Jalisco, Mexico.
Through Lustre Estudio, Annie seeks to build community, offering opportunities for connection and education through a diverse international group of artists, teachers and students who contribute to and elevate a shared creative practice. Lustre also collaborates with Ambos Project, recently developing a program to provide ceramics classes to shelters across Tijuana for migrants seeking asylum in the US.
The Spring 2025 Residency is made possible with the financial support of our generous donors and the City of San Diego Commission for Arts & Culture.
Here and There welcomes Fall 2024 design resident Christine Lee, San Diego based artist/designer of Interwoven Labs, an interdisciplinary practice encompassing art, design, science and sustainability.
Through a month-long design immersion in Tijuana, Christine will further her practice while sharing her work first-hand through an exhibition at Matiz Estudio Saturday, November 9.
This is part of an ongoing exchange that follows a two-week residency in San Diego in May 2024, which hosted Tijuana based architect Gael Guerrero, in a dialogue examining design’s potential for creative innovation and positive change.
Fall 2024:
Christine Lee draws from a variety of investigation methods involving intuitive direct-hand manipulation, traditional craft processes, and computer-aided technology. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Furniture Design/Woodworking from San Diego State University and a Bachelor of Science in Art from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was a Senior Sustainability Scholar of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University where she also recently taught in the School of Art of the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.
Having a strong inclination to salvage and deep appreciation for the environment, Christine works with a variety of materials ranging from fiber-based, natural, non-toxic, and sustainable, to materials that are mundane, surplus, or have been used/disregarded. She attributes her responsiveness to them to earlier training in the craft-based disciplines of woodworking and studio art furniture, and later in hand-weaving.
Through the residency, Christine will draw from the experience to explore the physical shapes and functional/practical uses of the Bag as an object, combining metaphors, meanings and materials for a new series.
The Fall 2024 Tijuana Residency is a community initiative of World Design Capital San Diego-Tijuana 2024.
Works shown: Low-Voc at City Gallery, San Diego City College, 2024: an installation of works produced with Naturally Bonded Boards, engineered wood composite panels which are non toxic, biodegradable and recyclable, and made from sawdust and recycled fibers without added formaldehyde. The material was developed by artist/designer Christine Lee in collaboration with John F. Hunt of the USDA Forestry Service Products Laboratory.
Photo credit: Blake Lockhard
Here and There welcomed May 2024 design resident Gael Guerrero, Tijuana based founder and creative director of architecture and design studio Fragmento. Through a two week stay in San Diego, Gael furthered his practice while sharing his work first-hand through an exhibition at Bread & Salt.
This was part of an exchange that will be followed by a two-week residency in Tijuana, hosting a designer from San Diego in an ongoing dialogue examining design’s potential for creative innovation and positive change.
Photography: Laura Estela Huerta
Video: Jeovanna Perez
Program Partners:
Bread & Salt
Ilan-Lael Foundation, James Hubbell Property
Salk Institute
Kendrick Kellogg, Yen Residence
Frederick Liebhart Residence with Paul Basile and Jules Wilson
The May 2024 Residency was made possible with the generous financial support of our donors, and the City of San Diego through the Commission for Arts & Culture and World Design Capital San Diego-Tijuana 2024 Community Driven Design Grants.
SPRING 2024:
