Self taught multimedia artist Melissa Calderón create bodies of conceptual work around themes exploring social and political landscapes; drawing upon historical and philosophical references of power, fragility and perception. She has exhibited her work at El Museo del Barrio, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, The Queens Museum, Socrates Sculpture Park, The Portland Museum of Art, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Arsenal de la Puntilla and Galeria 20/20 in Puerto Rico, Art in Odd Places Festival, and SmackMellon among others. She has been included in such books as Frescos, 50 contemporary artists from Puerto Rico, Strange Material: Storytelling through Textile, and EMERGENCY INDEX VOL. 4 ‘s annual performance publication. Currently, she is a recipient of a NYC Percent for Art commission to be permanently installed in the South Bronx and is currently showing work at The Rockefeller Foundation in NYC and The African American Museum in Philadelphia. She is born and bred in the Bronx.
unoxuno is a series of solo projects for contemporary art at El Museo del Barrio. They focus on a single work or installation by a single artist or collaborative group. unoxuno presents the work of local artists in alternative public spaces at the museum, the lobby and El Café, for an entire year. Invited artists are asked to propose a work for these designated areas.
Artists featured in the past in this series are COPE2 (b. 1968, South Bronx, New York) and Indie184 (b. 1980, Puerto Rico), Manuel Acevedo (b. 1964, Newark, New Jersey), and Sarah E. Zapata (b. 1988, Corpus Christi, Texas), Joiri Minaya (b. 1990, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic), Ernest Concepcíon (b. 1978, Manila, Philippines), and Lina Puerta (b. Englewood, New Jersey)