Kalena Marshall Garcia
“good with a camera”

Projects
You Don’t Look Puerto Rican
COMPHET
Learning Solidarity 1 & 2
Arroz y no Gandules
Sustainable Printing
Video Work
Curation  
Collaborations
Archive About
Resume/ CV
Contact

About the Artist


Kalena Marshall Garcia (she/her/ella) is a lens based artist born and raised in Southern California’s IE, she previously studied at Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia, earning her BA in Visual Studies. She works primarily in traditional and alternative photographic processes. Her work primarily explores a Diasporic Puerto Rican identity, queerness, domestic spaces, and issues her communities face. Coming from a mixed background, Marshall Garcia exists at the intersection of many marginalized communities. Marshall Garcia strives to reclaim the medium of photography and utilize her privileged position to make space for her communities to create awareness on the issues they face.

Marshall Garcia’s work takes many forms, ranging from traditional silver gelatin prints to large scale installations. Her work is conceptual and research based in tandem with her own experiences. A large part of her practice is the curation and installation of work with the intention of showing parallel dynamics of experience through the viewing. She is often in a parallelled position to the dual relationships she discusses in her work as a mixed artist– never being from here nor there, never really belonging to just one place or space but a liminal experience she inhabits. Marshall Garcia exhibits work in institutional fine art and communal art spaces, but makes work the same way.

Through the creation of her work she challenges established narratives and aims to foster inclusivity and understanding of inequalities within institutional spaces. By creating space for these dialogues in environments that have historically excluded them, she strives to contribute to the broader social discourse on identity, community, Diasporic experiences, and systemic issues that affect the communities she is a part of and that intersect with her own.