Marcus Kuiland-Nazario

Los Angeles native Marcus Kuiland-Nazario is an interdisciplinary artist, performance curator and producer. He is a founding artist of 18th Street Arts Center and Highways Performance Space as well as co-founder of Oficina de Proyectos Culturales, a contemporary art center in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and LA Community Health Project, a harm reduction street based needle exchange program. Kuiland-Nazario’s works are long-term research based cross-genre projects exploring extreme states of emotion such as grief, anger and loss influenced by the cultural and spiritual traditions of the African Diaspora.

His performance works have been included in national and international festivals including the Rapture Festival, ICA London, London; the Rompeforma Festival, San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Pacific Standard Time LA/LA, Los Angeles. Kuiland-Nazario is the recipient of the 2020 Santa Monica Artist Fellowship award.

He was co-curator of the 2022 Queer Biennial, and producer and co-curator (with Anne Bray and Anuradha Vikram) of XaMENing /FREEWAVES, a performance event exploring masculinities at the California State Historic Park (including works by Cassils, Rafa Esparza and Asher Hartman).

As a Fellow of the 2022 inaugural Los Angeles Cohort of Artists At Work, Kuiland-Nazario created Sea Change Lab in conjunction with the City of Santa Monica’s Art of Recovery program. Sea Change Lab provided time and space to artists including Carmen Argote, and Mariel Carranza and presented the works of artists/cultural workers Evan Kleiman, Madison Moore, Chip Kinman, Nao Bustamante and Phranc on the Santa Monica Pier and provided virtual arts ed programming and performances - all from an 8’ x 25’ trailer. Kuiland-Nazario has taught community arts and performance art at numerous institutions, including Otis College of Art and Design, Highways Performance Space, Beyond Baroque Literary Foundation, and Cal State University, Northridge.

As an arts educator, Kuiland-Nazario has led and designed art workshops at venues including MOCA, Santa Monica Museum, The Getty Villa, The Getty Center, Grand Park, Noah’s Ark at the Skirball Cultural Center, The Heart Project, REDCAT, The 18th Street Arts Center, ICALA, Echo Park Rising, Stories Bookstore, Self Help Graphics, The City of Santa Monica, OUTFest, Craft Contemporary and Virginia Avenue Park. Currently, he is working on Threnody, a multidisciplinary work examining grief and loss developed during residencies at the Coaxial Arts Foundation and Cardboard City, a project of ReDiscover Center, and Botanica Moderna - an interactive performance installation inspired by spiritual supply shops.

He is the Inaugural recipient of the Jacki Apple Award for Performance Art and Artist Projects. He is the Creative Director of THE WRINKLE ROOM. Currently he is at work on Bótanica Moderna, a performance installation inspired by spiritual supply shops, and Threnody, a performance installation inspired by funerary and cemetery traditions, created at a Coaxial residency and funded by the Jackie Apple Foundation for Performance Art.