Mar Parrilla Site-Responsive Performance 

Caroline Monnet’s site-responsive installation for the Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall accompanies An Indigenous Present, a thematic exhibition spanning 100 years of contemporary Indigenous art. Responding to the ICA’s location at the edge of the harbor, Monnet’s installation is plotted with “blooms” that expand fractal-like, symbolizing Boston’s 400-year history of land reclamation. Intricately layered materials cohere into geometric circles and lines that Monnet abstracts from Anishinaabeg designs found on regalia, birch bark baskets, and beadwork. Man-made Land is a meditation, as she explains, “on the interconnectedness of all living things…a way to transmit cultural knowledge and values across generations, reinforcing a sense of community and belonging.” 

Mar Parrilla is a Taíno AfroBorikua and award-winning choreographer, educator, and community organizer. She is the founding Artistic Director of Danza Orgánica, a Boston-based dance theater company rooted in liberation, antiracism, antipatriarchy, and decolonial practices. A proud mother and interdisciplinary artist, Mar founded the Dance for Social Justice™ program and the annual We Create! Festival. Her work has been recognized by the BARR Foundation, the New England Foundation for the Arts, and the Boston Foundation, among others. Mar is also a Luminary Artist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and has led multi–year collaborations with the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe and Puerto Rico-based artists through Proyecto Melaza. She has taught since 1998 in K–12 and higher education, integrating decolonial approaches into her pedagogy. Fluent in five languages, she is currently learning her Taíno Arawak language and proudly honors her lineage of artists, healers, and visionaries.