Marcela Torres

PROGRAM MANAGER

Marcela Torres (they/them) is an art-based educator and community organizer with 15 years of experience collaborating with public schools, museums, sculpture parks, and grassroots organizations. Their practice is focused on relationships with intergenerational communities around land stewardship, visual art, movement, and ancestral knowledge. 

Torres is originally from Goshute, Ute, and Timpangoes lands referred to as Salt Lake City, Utah. They reside nomadically, moving for projects, residencies, and to be in community, between the portages of the Myammia, Kaskaskisa, Peoria, Ho-Chunk, Bodwéwadmi (Potawatomi), and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, known as Chicago, Illinois, and Lenape lands referred to as Brooklyn, New York. 

Torres is a 3rd generation Mexican-American, with their paternal great-grandmother emigrating to the U.S. to flee civil war violence against women. Their maternal grandparents were agricultural workers who participated in the U.S. Bracero program. Torres identifies as a diasporic Mexican-American who continues to search for knowledge around their heritage, biological traits, and indigenous cosmologies. Torres is an active participant in learning Mihtotilistli dance and Kauhpowalli, Toltec time-keeping. They are a member of the Kalpuli Xinachtli Xochikali in Chicago, IL. Through their Kalpuli (Mihtotilistli dance group), they participate in nature-based ceremonies, Mexican Nahua songs, and codex research. This knowledge informs Torres as a land-art sculptor with knowledge in adobe brick building, ceramic arts, scents, and fire-based cooking. 

Torres approaches their role as Project Manager at Aurora Commons as a continuation of creative community-focused organizing. They bring their nature-based values and community-first ethics into their logic of programming. Torres celebrates being in collaboration with Susan Misra and the growing Aurora Commons network.