Evan Apodaca

Email:

emapodaca@ucsd.edu

Website:

https://www.evanmapodaca.com/

Pronouns:

he/him/his

Biography:

Evan Apodaca is a third generation Chicano artist whose practice revolves around his ongoing multi-platform series Secret City, which deconstructs U.S. imperialism and the militarization of Southern California. This is exemplified in his video installation Monumental Interventions, which was censored from an exhibition at the San Diego International Airport in March 2023. This work uses facial motion-capture combined with testimony to create an interplay between dream-like illusion and polemic critical attack on the hyper-patriotism of San Diego's social fabric and the region's built environments. Correspondingly, in Insurgent Smokescreens Apodaca assumes the role of historian by depicting first-hand accounts of Vietnam War-era antiwar activists from Southern California. In this series, Apodaca fills the void in our collective memory of encountered struggles and hard-won victories in times of immense global conflict.

Prior to Apodaca's examination of the pervasiveness of U.S. militarism, his short animated documentary film titled Que Lejos Estoy about his own Mexican-American family, streamed nationally on PBS in 2016. In 2018 he was the Associate Producer and Animator for Singing Our Way to Freedom, an award winning feature film about musician and civil-rights activist, Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez. Apodaca received his Bachelor's of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009. His work has shown at the El Paso Museum of Art (2024); Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juarez (2024); Athenaeum Art Center (2024); the San Diego International Airport (2023); the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (2022); Best Practice Gallery (2020); The New Americans Museum (2017); the Chicano International Film Festival (2017); the Tijuana Film Festival (2017) the PBS Online Film Festival (2016); and the San Diego Latino Film Festival (2016). Apodaca was a recipient of San Diego Commission for Art and Culture’s Far South Border North grant in 2023; a Reclaiming Border Narrative Fellow at the Center For Cultural Power in 2023; a recipient of the National Association of Latino Arts & Culture’s Border Narrative Change Grant in 2021; and a San Diego Foundation Creative Catalyst grant recipient in 2019.