Coralina Rodriguez Meyer
Coralina Rodriguez Meyer Mixed-race indigenous Andean American (Muisca/Inca) Quipucamayoc artist. Raised Ital & Tinkuy (queer) in the Caribbean by a landscaper and curandera, Coralina is a Brooklyn and Miami based culture keeper offering fertility effigies to transgress plantation labor systems with plantology wisdom through installations of documentary sculpture, photography and painting. After her infertility diagnosis in 2007, Coralina began examining the texture and complexion of the Castas system to transgress structural violence in American mythology. Created By, Of and For melanated, immigrant LGBTQIA+ families, the works destigmatize material refuse as a maternal refuge. Collaborating with her neighbors, botanicas and doulas preserving creative and procreative life, MamaSpaBotanica workshop (2007-present) offers full-spectrum cultural care to restore dignity and divinity to survivors of conflicting climate and fertility crisis in America. Documentary sculptures cast intimate ephemera and environmental waste in domestic construction materials bound by serapes, to resist assimilation and decrease maternal and infant mortality with civic and climate agency. Preserving indigenous healing craft traditions such as mummification rituals from her 5000 bce Chinchorros ancestors, carnival palm weaving funerary memorials from her Caribbean upbringing, her works illuminate neon traditions vibrating in our native narratives.
Coralina studied painting at MICA, anthropology at Johns Hopkins, holds an Architecture BFA from Parsons School of Design and an MFA Combined Media from Hunter College CUNY. A professor of Visual Art Foundations at Pratt, she has taught at FIU, been an artist in residence at Miami Dade College and researcher at UM Kislak Americas collection. Coralina is a founding board member of Menstrual Market and collaborator with Urban Greenworks Miami. Coralina was featured in the NY Times, Washington Post, Hyperallergic, Univision, The Guardian and Art Forum. She exhibited at Queens Museum, Bronx Museum, Perez Art Museum Miami, Smithsonian, Kunsthaus Brethanien Berlin, Colonial FL Cultural Heritage Museum, CAC NewOrleans, Immigrant Artist Biennial and the Southern Survey Biennial Houston.
Coralina studied painting at MICA, anthropology at Johns Hopkins, holds an Architecture BFA from Parsons School of Design and an MFA Combined Media from Hunter College CUNY. A professor of Visual Art Foundations at Pratt, she has taught at FIU, been an artist in residence at Miami Dade College and researcher at UM Kislak Americas collection. Coralina is a founding board member of Menstrual Market and collaborator with Urban Greenworks Miami. Coralina was featured in the NY Times, Washington Post, Hyperallergic, Univision, The Guardian and Art Forum. She exhibited at Queens Museum, Bronx Museum, Perez Art Museum Miami, Smithsonian, Kunsthaus Brethanien Berlin, Colonial FL Cultural Heritage Museum, CAC NewOrleans, Immigrant Artist Biennial and the Southern Survey Biennial Houston.
Portrait photo by Matthew Capowski
