Juan Angel Ortiz

Juan Angel Ortiz is an artist, activist, and community organizer. Ancestrally and generationally from the borderlands of El Paso/Ciudad Juárez, Ortiz’s work draws from his familial history of activism and organizing around issues that directly affect border communities. He has over 25 years of immigrant and social justice advocacy, organizing in non-governmental, directly-impacted, autonomous and grassroots collectives and groups. He has worked on issues ranging from racial, environmental and economic justice, to indigenous sovereignty, to anti-carceral, abolitionist organizing.  

Ortiz is also the first in his lineage to attend institutions of higher education. Currently a doctoral student, instructor, and fellow in the Mexican American Studies department at the University of Arizona, his research and study focus on the manifestations of mass incarceration on the border and its relationship to US imperialism and its racial caste system. Ortiz’s educational journey began while incarcerated as a youth in a Corrections Corporation of America facility, where he obtained his GED. He subsequently obtained a BA from the University of Texas at El Paso, an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and an MA in Art and Public Policy from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Ortiz’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and he has been recognized by numerous fellowships, awards, and grants, including most recently via the Mellon Foundation Frontera Culture Fund, the Media Democracy Fund, the Right of Return Fellowship, the Art for Justice Fund, the Blade of Grass Fellowship for socially-engaged art, and the Baltimore Social Innovation Fellowship.