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.

Ryan Perez

Imperial County

Ryan Joseph Perez is an independent filmmaker, videographer, and writer. He lives and works in the desert community of Niland in Imperial County. Perez won an award for his entry at the Salton Sea Film Festival (2021) and worked as an art director on a soundstage for Awesomeness TV. As a writer, director, and editor, he continues to develop his craft while meeting and collaborating with people in and out of the industry.

Katie Ruiz

San Diego County

Katie Ruiz is a Chicana artist born and raised in Southern California. She is an interdisciplinary artist, making work in painting and fiber sculpture. Ruiz is the creator of the Pompom Project, a community art project that invites participants to make pompoms for larger art installations. She is known for her activism work with refugees and the children's book "Brian the Wildflower." Ruiz has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Northern Arizona University and a Master of Fine Art from The New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting & Sculpture in New York City.

Thelma de Castro

San Diego County

Filipinx playwright Thelma Virata de Castro lives in San Diego, and her writing explores identity and belonging. She's a Hedgebrook alumna and a commissioned artist with The Old Globe Theatre. With Asian Story Theater, she won The San Diego Foundation's Creative Catalyst Fellowship and collaborated on multiple California Humanities projects. Access Inc. awarded her the Esperanza Award for extraordinary commitment to eradicating domestic violence in San Diego County. Playwrights Project produced The TAG Project with support from the William Male Foundation. She founded San Diego Playwrights, serves the Dramatists Guild on the Regional Affairs Committee, and builds community with United AAPI Artists. She chairs the DEI committee and sits on the Board of Directors for San Diego Writers, Ink. She works as a teaching artist and dramaturge. The San Diego Union-Tribune included her in its list of Phenomenal San Diego Women: Creators and Performers.

Neil Kendricks

San Diego County

Neil Kendricks is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, filmmaker, and educator. Kendricks earned a Master's in Television, Film, and New Media from San Diego State University in 2006. Kendricks launched his mixed-media "Strange Fruit" drawing series as a participant in the Art Produce Gallery's 2020 Artist-in-Residence program. The exhibition "Mirror, Mirror: Lights, Camera, Dreams!" at Bread and Salt Gallery showcased his short films and storyboards in 2021. Kendricks' exhibition "Temple of Story" which combined large-scale drawings with audio recordings of his short stories inspired by past, present, and future pandemics, was shown at the Oceanside Museum of Art 2021/2022.  His new experimental short film, "Book of Skin," will complete postproduction in 2023.

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.

Haydee "Betty Bangs" Juarez

San Diego County

"Betty Bangs is a queer Chicana artist, working with the medium of painting in acrylic and murals, but also sewing and DJ-ing. Bangs paints shapes representing women of all shapes & sizes. She has painted murals in San Diego and Mexico City and assisted in painting four murals in Chicano Park. Of utmost importance to her is representing her cultura & lifestyle through her work.

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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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