Guadalupe Maravilla is a transdisciplinary visual artist, choreographer, and healer. At the age of eight, Maravilla was part of the first wave of unaccompanied, undocumented children to arrive at the United States border in the 1980s as a result of the Salvadoran Civil War. Maravilla grounds his practice in the historical and contemporary contexts belonging to undocumented and cancer communities. Maravilla has exhibited in major museums such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Modern Art, and is a 2019 recipient of the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. 

Guadalupe Maravilla will share his sculpture and sound healing practice and its connection to his personal history, including a journey as an unaccompanied migrant and healing from cancer. In this talk, Guadalupe will discuss his Disease Thrower series, which are large sculptural works incorporating gongs used for sound ceremonies for cancer and immigrant communities. He will also explore his Retablo, Tripa Chuca series and the more recent sculpture Mariposa Relampago, a bus that was used to trace his migration journey from El Salvador to the US and was transformed into a large-scale vibrational healing instrument.