Artists + Practitioners + Organizations

Meet the artists, practitioners, and organizations! Far South/Border North awarded funding to support artists and cultural practitioners working in disciplines from performing arts, visual arts, music, film and media, and literature to multidisciplinary and socially engaged forms.

Far South/Border North Round I Grant Recipients

Our Round I grant recipients include about 60 artists and cultural practitioners from San Diego and Imperial counties. Round I grant recipients began developing their campaigns in June 2023, and are now implemented those campaigns through May 2024.

Oscar J. Romo

San Diego County

Oscar Romo graduated as an architect with master's degrees in urban planning, social housing, and computer science and doctoral studies in environmental sciences. His concentration is art, reflecting scientific discoveries and exemplifying his academic research. An advocate of sustainability, he has created hundreds of art pieces made entirely from repurposed materials. He has worked in several countries on sizeable public art structures down to miniatures, always inspired by natural systems and resource conservation. Committed to education since he was in college, he has led thousands of students to appreciate science.

Maria Patrice Amon

San Diego County

Maria Patrice Amon is a director, producer, scholar, and leader. Maria Patrice Amon is a director, producer, scholar, and leader. Directing: Hoops (Milwaukee Chamber Theatre), A Skeptic and a Bruja (Urbanite Theatre) Group! The Musical (Passage Theatre) Hoopla! (La Jolla Playhouse POP Tour) Azul (Diversionary Theatre), Mojada (UCSD),  A Zoom of One's Own (CSUSM), Ich Bin Ein Berliner (Theatre Lab) DREAM HOU$E (CSUSM/TuYo Theatre) Fade (Moxie Theatre), The Madres (Moxie Theatre), Lydia (Brown Bag Theatre Company). Dramaturg: Manifest Destinitis (San Diego Rep), Beachtown (San Diego Rep). Patrice was a 2020 National Directing Fellow and an Associate Artistic Director at San Diego Repertory Theatre. She is currently a Latinx Theatre Commons Steering Committee member and a National New Play Network board member. Patrice is an assistant professor at California State University, San Marcos.

Maxx Moses

San Diego County

Maxx Moses, an international muralist, is also known as Pose2, a world-renowned graffiti writer. His distinct style in urban art and corporate commissions and inspiring messages that connect to communities worldwide have garnered him global recognition from South Africa to South America. His projects promote an environment of longevity, growth, wholeness, and spiritual well-being. Awareness centers, therapeutic facilities, and spas embellished with this artist's work have received awards for beautification, experienced increased enrollment, and inspired several published articles. As a professor, his curriculum is innovative, engaging, and geared toward student success. Moses' insightfulness inspires young minds, while his experience motivates people to act. His encouragement sustains the discouraged and guides them toward achievement.

Bernardo Mazón Daher

San Diego County

"Bernardo Mazón Daher is a border brat from the San Diego South Bay. He has taught and worked in the arts nationwide for premier, prestigious companies and on grassroots, community-based projects. Mazón Daher has also organized public health causes and voting campaigns in Hispanic communities throughout California. Before the pandemic, he served as a medical disaster responder for multiple governments and agencies and, afterward, worked in a pro bono law office for immigrants and refugees from the Middle East and Latin America. Returning to his calling to engage people in civic action, among other creative projects, Mazón Daher recently wrote and performed “Taxilandia: San Diego” to motivate people to support local causes. He is an all-around story-focused advocate and seeks to create spaces where different peoples intersect to listen, learn, labor, love, and play together.

Kelsey Daniels

San Diego County

Kelsey O. Daniels is an artist organizer and baddie scholar from Southeast San Diego. Her work centers on storytelling, world-building, and dreamwork as tools for liberation. As a fat Black queer disabled femme, Kelsey's work is rooted in a commitment to honoring her ancestors and descendants by revoking consent from the failed experiment of white supremacy and dreaming up worlds that are affirming and lit. She explores themes of identity, imagination, and ancestral memory through poetry, performance, and mixed media. She is an internationally ranked slam poet whose work has been platformed on VAST Press and as an opening act for Rupi Kaur's world tour. Kelsey founded Check, Please: an open mic experiment, a transformative platform that reimagines creative community by prioritizing connection over perfection. Additionally, Kelsey curates the Black Dream Experiment, a creative universe that explores Black dreaming as a collective ancestral, wellness, and liberation practice.

Miki Vale

San Diego County

Miki Vale is an international Hip Hop performing artist and U.S. cultural ambassador, teaching artist, Old Globe-commissioned playwright, and founder of SoulKiss Theater, an arts education organization for queer Black womxn. Her work serves to amplify community consciousness around relationships, wellness, and justice. Vale has performed and participated in panels at landmark venues and festivals in the US and internationally, from Hollywood and Washington D.C. to Mumbai and Cairo. For her contributions to Hip Hop culture, Vale has earned a San Diego Hip Hop Honors Award, a Female Perspective Award, and the 2021 San Diego Music Award for Song of the Year for "Bad Wolves," a song condemning anti-Black racism. For her work within the LGBTQIA+ community, she was awarded the 2017 Bayard Rustin Civil Rights Honor.

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Far South/Border North Round II Grant Recipients

Our Round II grant recipients include 18 San Diego and Imperial County organizations. In fall 2023, they hired artists and cultural practitioners and began working alongside them to develop their campaigns, and implemented them through August 2024.

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