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.

Sandra Carmona

Sandra Carmona

Sandra Carmona

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Sandra Carmona

San Diego County

Sandra Carmona is of Wixárika descent, Chicana, daughter of farmworkers, and a muralist for over 20 years. She is a well-known leader in her community and a longtime activist for farmworkers and Indigenous rights. She founded Calpulli Omeyocan, a grassroots Indigenous dance collaborative, and her project, Maijawee Divine Serpent, is a transborder art piece that served as a political statement in solidarity with the Kumeyaay Nation and Indigenous people’s struggle over sovereignty on the U.S.-Mexico border. Sandra’s art intends to amplify the voices of her people and showcase their culture, contributions, struggles, and vibrancy. To her, art is medicine.

Ryan Perez

Ryan Perez

Ryan Perez

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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.

Ramel Wallace

Ramel Wallace

Ramel Wallace

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Ramel Wallace

San Diego County

Ramel Wallace is a multi-dispensary artist working at the intersection of creativity, community, and technology. He is the Senior Community Manager at BAM, a public relations and marketing firm for venture-backed companies. Wallace is responsible for researching, developing, and managing BAM events with key internal and external stakeholders. He has been a recording artist for over fifteen years, leading him to host CreativeMornings/SanDiego and become a San Diego African American Museum of Fine Art board member. Before BAM, Wallace was the CEO and Founder of thChrch and continues to live at the intersection of art, tech, and creativity. His roots in Hip Hop have allowed him to turn his ability to control a crowd into an ability to run an organization and lead a community. He is currently the CEO of The Holyfield, an organization that focuses on creativity and identity.

Johnnierenee Nelson

Johnnierenee Nelson

Johnnierenee Nelson

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Johnnierenee Nelson

San Diego County

Award-winning poet and playwright Johnnierenee Nia Nelson, aka the Kwanzaa Poet, has written and published six books of poetry. Ms. Nelson is a poet/teacher with California Poets in the Schools and San Diego's Border Voices Project and a performance poet who has presented readings and workshops from Cairo, Egypt, to Vancouver, British Columbia. She also appeared in the Emmy-Award-winning documentary "Lighting the Way." In 2017, Nelson received a Fellowship from the Livingkindness Foundation to attend the International Women Writers Guild's 40th Annual Summer Conference in Allentown, Pennsylvania. She serves as the San Diego County Area Coordinator for California Poets in the Schools and as Poet Laureate of the World Beat Cultural Center in San Diego's Balboa Park.

Yolanda Marie Franklin

Yolanda Marie Franklin

Yolanda Marie Franklin

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Yolanda Marie Franklin

San Diego County

Yolanda Marie Franklin is an award-winning actor, director, producer, and community leader, and appointed Artistic Director for Common Ground Theatre, resident theatre at the San Diego College of Continuing Education Educational Cultural Complex and Theatre-in-Residence at The La Jolla Playhouse for a second-year term. Some of her credits include Sense Of Love, The Cell Plays, Little Rock, Uplifting Black Voices Play Festival, Night Mother, The Ruby In Us, The Further Adventures of Hedder Gabler, Raisin In The Sun, The August Wilson Cycle, and The Sugar Witch.

Mabelle Reynoso

Mabelle Reynoso

Mabelle Reynoso

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Mabelle Reynoso

San Diego County

Mabelle Reynoso is an award-winning playwright, educator, and applied theatre practitioner. She recently had work produced or commissioned by Theatre SilCo, Orlando Repertory Theatre, Olympia Family Theatre, Kaiser Permanente Educational Theatre, and the San Diego Symphony. Her plays for multigenerational audiences are largely informed by her experience as a teaching artist for the arts education organization Playwrights Project. She works with underserved and marginalized populations, including Spanish-speaking immigrants, expectant teens, foster youth, and justice-involved youth and adults. Mabelle is co-host of the podcast Hey Playwright and leads TuYo Theatre's Pa' Letras, a workshop for emerging Latinx playwrights. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from New York University and a Master of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts. Reynoso is pursuing her Ph.D. in Education for Social Justice at the University of San Diego. She was proudly born in Tijuana, Mexico.

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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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