TUCSON 2025
SAVE THE DATE: April 12, 2026
Creativity + Community: Celebrating AAW Artists in Tucson
Hard Times. Make Art! - The Community Gathers to Create New Things & Celebrate Local Artists
Artists At Work (AAW) and Southwest Folklife Alliance invite you to join us in an intergenerational afternoon of art-making, problem-solving, and good times. Artists, art-lovers, families, kids, teens, seniors, and “ordinary folks” welcome. Gather to make meaning, joy, and good stuff. The gathering will bring together artists and community members to explore creativity as a tool for meaning-making, resilience, and social impact through intergenerational art-making and conversation.
In Tucson, the Southwest Folklife Alliance will collaborate with AAW artists through its Loom Market program, which connects heritage-based artists committed to strengthening their communities through traditional art.
Harrison Preston will be working with a local Tohono O'Odham Pottery Collective, Katrina Kerstetter with Iskashitaa Refugee Network on their ongoing Refugee Garden Art Program (RGAP), Porfirio “Pilo” Mora with the Regeneración (currently helping create a Center for Cultural Organizing) in Southern Tucson, and Shane Beeshligaii with the living agricultural museum Mission Garden.
Artists At Work is produced and administered by THE OFFICE performing arts + film with generous support from the Mellon Foundation.
HARRISON PRESTON
KATRINA KERSTETTER
PORFIRIO “PILO” MORA
SHANE BEESHLIGAII
Southwest Folklife Alliance
The Southwest Folklife Alliance (SFA) builds more equitable and vibrant communities by celebrating the everyday expressions of culture, heritage, and diversity rooted in the Greater Southwest and U.S.-Mexico Border Corridor. Nationally, SFA amplifies models and methods of meaningful cultural work that center traditional knowledge, social equity, and collaboration.
SFA accomplishes this by:
producing festivals and public programs that increase understanding and respect for folklife practices;
providing direct support to heritage-based artists in the region; and
documenting folklife and amplifying the voices of artists and cultural workers engaged in folklife practices.