Join us for a conversation between 2024 Re/Match Artists & Tala Founder, Francine Almeda. Hosted within Tala’s library and listening room, the permanent home to the Chuquimarca Art Library, Cathy Hsiao, Alberto Ortega, and Maryam Taghavi will discuss the various avenues and support systems needed to create a sustainable art practice.

The conversation will highlight how, where, and from who they each have found support and outlooks that allow them to be continually inspired to make.

Visitors are encouraged to spend time with Vani Aguilar’s Blinked Twice solo exhibition prior to the conversation, which will start at 7pm.

Space is limited.

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About Re/Match:
Centered in artist advocacy, Re/Match is a non-profit that provides financial and professional support for Chicago visual artists to support the development and sustainability of their arts practice. Founded in 2024 by Samantha Reynolds, Re/Match distributed unrestricted grants of $10,000 to five Chicago visual artists who are pushing the boundaries of their visual mediums to encourage the production of new work and celebrate the vibrancy and energy of the visual arts field in Chicago during its inaugural year. @rematch.chicago

About the moderator & host Francine Almeda:

Francine Almeda is a Chicago-based, Filipina-American gallerist and curator. She is the Founder and Director of Tala, an independent contemporary art center with a multitudinous program containing a library, gallery, and atrium. Prior to this, she founded Jude Gallery, an artist-run project and exhibition space which ran from 2021-2024. As a gallerist, Almeda builds community-based platforms for artists that encourage transdisciplinary experimentation while proposing new realities. Her practice nurtures new methods of collaboration in order to expand the capacities of art as a caretaking tool. With a focus on conceptual, narrative-driven curatorial projects, and public programming, Francine supports QTBIPOC artists at all stages of their career. @tala.chicago

About Cathy Hsiao:

Cathy Hsiao’s practice examines the intersections of democracy, technology, and ecology, often intervening in existing cultural iconographies through coded language and a touch of play. Currently, she is focused on addressing the political, economic, and legal status of her native Taiwan. Her diasporic experience growing up between Taiwan, the US, and Hong Kong, has shaped her interest in exploring various forms of sculptural storytelling. Utilizing both craft techniques and technology, Hsaio’s multidisciplinary approach manifests in installations that can include sculpture, sound, and sourced imagery.

About Alberto Ortega:

Through a range of mediums such as drawing, sculpture, writing and video, Alberto Ortega Trejo addresses the complex interplay of ecological catastrophes, architectural modernity, and Indigeneity across the Americas. Born in Pachuca de Soto, Mexico, and grounded in the architectural histories and cosmologies of Indigenous worlds, Ortega explores narratives shaped by centuries of toxic waste, violence, and dispossession. By critically engaging with sites where histories of Indigenous resistance intersect with state architectures, he challenges conventional thinking to offer new perspectives on nature, the built environment, indigeneity and their entanglements with contemporary issues.

About Maryam Taghavi:

As a bilingual and native Persian speaker, Maryam Taghavi is fascinated with how language shapes our personal and collective perception. Through her work, she abstracts written text to convey meaning beyond legibility, disentangling linguistic forms from their intended function. This can take many forms from painting, drawing, sculpture, performance, publication, and installation. Born in Tehran, Iran, Taghavi draws inspiration from Persian calligraphy, talismans and facets of Islamic occult traditions. Her work carves out a space for the complexities of a diasporic memory to be remembered and held together.

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Tags: Alberto Ortega Trejo, Cathy Hsiao, Chicago, Chuquimarca, CXW: Tala x Re/Match Artists, Francine Almeda, Maryam Taghavi, Samantha Reynolds, Tala, Vani Aguilar, Vani Aguilar: Blinked Twice, West Town