SaveArtSpace x Womxn in Windows is proud to present American Gurl: home — land, a group public art exhibition on billboard ad space in Los Angeles, CA, opening February 14, 2024, curated by Zehra Zehra & Kilo Kish.

The American Gurl: home — land selected artists are Alima Lee, Anna Divinagracia, Avery Norman, Cauleen Smith, Ella Ezeike, Melissa Sutherland Moss, Melvonna Marie Ballenger, Natalie V. Grant, Shenny de Los Angeles & Amanda Morell “iiritu”, Solange Knowles, and Zion Estrada.

This billboard series is a part of the wider American Gurl project co-curated by Zehra Zehra and Kilo Kish. This iteration titled American Gurl: home — land will also take shape as a video installation and programming series as part of culture:LAB at MOCA Grand, Los Angeles, scheduled to open February 16, 2025. 

home — land interrogates our relationships with the land we inhabit, examining how experiences with the natural world influence our understanding of self. This iteration further explores the concept of home, how locations shape our identities and reflect on themes of diaspora and displacement, revealing how these narratives inform our collective connection to place.

The works presented will elucidate the artists' diverse relationships to land, space, and community in America. They celebrate beauty while mourning its loss, advocating for transformation and regeneration. As land and water provide a sense of belonging, the American Gurl seeks to challenge the archetypal American woman, encouraging new visions of self and country.

This project functions as a play lab for reflection, connection, and the celebration of unique perspectives, serving as a mirror to reflect our nation more completely and inviting us to consider how our feminine identities and natural environment are intertwined. Through this exploration, we envision a more inclusive and nuanced narrative of the American Dream.

Opening February 14, 2025, SaveArtSpace will launch public art installations for each selected artwork on billboard ad spaces in Los Angeles, CA. The public art will be on view for at least one month.

Selected Artists

Location: Willoughby Ave & Highland Ave, Los Angeles, CA

Alima Lee is a transdisciplinary artist from Queens, New York. They are a recent Bard MFA Film & Video Graduate. Their practice is an ongoing experiment in producing physical evidence from a metaphysical exploration of existence. A reassertion of Self, an exercise of unlearning, decolonizing and exorcizing imposed histories and ideas. Working in an uninhibited range of mediums from video installation to sculpture, they employ techniques that open other dimensions in exploration of queer ecologies, viscosity, motility and communion through physical, virtual and emotional forms. As an educator, they have taught 16mm filmmaking, video arts and experimental documentary production at Bard College, California Institute of the Arts and Echo Park Film Center. Their films & video work has been on view at Now Instant Image Hall, Jeffrey Deitch Gallery Los Angeles, the Tate Modern, MOCA, Smithsonian African American Museum, Gavin Brown's Enterprise, and ICA Boston among other global entities.

Connect with Alima at @alima_lee.

Location: Rose Ave & Lincoln Blvd, Los Angeles, CA

Anna Divinagracia (she/they) is lens based interdisciplinary artist, whose work is inspired by her shared experiences growing up in the Philippines and coming of age in Baltimore. Born in 1997 in Davao City, Philippines, Divinagracia's artistic journey began at a young age when she discovered her passion for viewing and capturing the world around her through her camera. With a particular curiosity towards the intricacies and nuances of Filipino and American culture, Divinagracia uses her art to explore themes of love, destiny, home, identity, and acculturation as an immigrant.

Divinagracia holds a bachelor's degree in marketing from the illustrious Morgan State University and is currently in residency at Creative Alliance, Baltimore, MD. She currently works as a Digital Marketing Coordinator at Chesapeake Arts Center. Divinagracia has been recognized by Suboart Magazine, Bmore Art, Womanly Magazine, and Subvrt Magazine. Divinagracia's artwork has been exhibited in various galleries across Baltimore, at Towson University, and at the Umbrella Art Fair in Washington, DC.

Model: Jessica Nguyen

Stylist: Sydney Gonsalves

Make-up Artist: Victoria Gomes

Photo assistant: Ritesh Gautam

This artwork is part of an ongoing project called Pandarayuhan: Home is a Memory, which will be exhibited in Baltimore, MD in October 2025. 

Connect with Anna at @divinagraciaphoto.

Location: Fletcher Dr & Larga Ave, Los Angeles, CA

Connect with Avery at @averynorman.

Location: Maple Ave & 6th St, Los Angeles, CA

Cauleen Smith was raised in Sacramento, California and lives in Los Angeles. Smith is faculty in the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture. Smith holds a BA in Creative Arts from San Francisco State University and an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Theater Film and Television. Smith’s short films, feature film, an installation performance were work showcased at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2019. Smith has had solo exhibitions at The Whitney Museum of American Art, MassMoCA and LACMA. Smith is the recipient of the following awards: Rockefeller Media Arts Award, Creative Capital Film / Video, Chicago 3Arts Grant, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Chicago Expo Artadia Award, and Rauschenberg Residency, Herb Alpert Awards in the Arts in Film and Video 2016, United States Artists Award 2017, 2016 inaugural recipient of the Ellsworth Kelly Award, 2020 recipient of the Studio Museum Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize, and 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship.

Connect with Cauleen at @cauleen_smith.

Location: Airdrome St & Robertson Blvd, Los Angeles, CA

Ella Ezeike is a Nigerian-American award winning filmmaker and photographer known for her evocative storytelling that often centers on the nuanced experiences of Black life. Born in Los Angeles, she later moved to London, where her exposure to diverse cultures and creative environments significantly shaped her artistic vision. Initially pursuing fashion marketing at the University of the Arts London, Ezeike transitioned into filmmaking, starting with self-directed projects and commercial work. 

Her debut short film, Bluebird (2021), explored sisterhood and emotional resilience through a poetic lens. This was followed by Words We Don’t Say (2022), a heartfelt examination of intergenerational relationships, which solidified her reputation for creating deeply relatable and visually striking narratives. Her work has been screened at the established art institutions such as the Tate Modern and The Photographers Gallery.

Ezeike’s work often blends surrealism with honest narratives, showcasing the emotional complexity of her subjects. She actively advocates for underrepresented voices in the film industry, particularly Black women, and contributes to platforms like Girls in Film, which promote emerging female talent. Currently, Ezeike splits her time between London and Los Angeles, continuing to expand her portfolio with projects that emphasize intentionality and visual storytelling.

Connect with Ella at @ellaezeike.

Location: Beverly Blvd & Normandie Ave, Los Angeles, CA

Melissa Sutherland Moss (b. Brooklyn, NY) is a Costa Rican American interdisciplinary artist working across collage, painting, video, sound, text, and installation. Her practice explores the construction of landscape, language, and the intertwined histories of the Caribbean and the United States, viewing landscape as a cultural and historical artifact shaped by memory, identity, and time. Through processes of accretion, erasure, and extraction, she uncovers hidden layers of stories and identities embedded in the land, creating a dynamic tension between what is visible and what is concealed.

Her work has been recognized and exhibited at The Biggs Museum of American Art, and she has participated in notable residencies including ArtCrawl Harlem, Chrysalis Institute for Emerging Artists, The Alliance of Artist Communities, and Zea Mays Printmaking mentorship program. Her artistic contributions have been featured in publications such as Black Enterprise, Forbes, Essence, Modern Luxury, and Refinery 29. Currently pursuing her MFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Moss divides her time between New York, and Baltimore, MD.

Artist Statement:

My interdisciplinary practice is an investigation of the boundary between performance and daily life. I reflect on how migration experiences blur the lines between personal identity and public perception.

I blend narrative modes to create layered works that weave text, fiber collage, paintings, and performance. Utilizing materials like burlap, brown paper bags, natural dye, and rope, I explore themes of colonialism within the context of African Caribbean and American history. I’m curious how I can employ techniques of accretion and extraction to interrogate the relationship between historical erasure and speculative interpretation.

Through the lens of my inherited story as an American born to Costa Rican parents, I explore how existing within Western landscapes challenges my notions of belonging, connection, and ‘home.’ These topics manifest through performances and dialogues with myself. They’re meditations on being perceived as "foreign" or "other" as I simultaneously grapple with my sense of nationalism in a multicultural society.

My multimedia practice is iterative, employing language and movement repetitively as forms of performative mourning.These methods allow for transformation in response to histories I uncover through my research. My practice shows a desire to bridge past and present, while linking distant landscapes to personal narratives.

Description:

In this sculptural, photographic, and performance series I explore the duality of my body as both subject and object. I consider the conflicting identities that emerge as I travel between worlds and become both observer and the observed.I’m especially interested in examining how we present ourselves within various environments, and how that display sometimes differs from our internal sense of self. I use my body to create an intimate connection with an inanimate sculpture, inviting viewers to consider their own relationships with themselves and their surroundings.

Connect with Melissa at @melissasutherlandmoss.

Location: Pico Blvd & Wellesley Ave, Los Angeles, CA

Melvonna Marie Ballenger, affectionately known as “Mel” was born on August 6, 1954 in Saint Louis, Missouri. She was the eldest of seven children. Mel attended Stephens College for women in Columbia Missouri and later transferred to Howard University where she earned her bachelor’s degree in Communications.

After graduating from Howard, Mel relocated to Los Angeles, California where she entered UCLA’s M.F.A. program in film and television production. While there, Mel was a part of a group of African American students during the 1970’s and early 1980’s who inspired a black independent filmmaker movement. Through her films, Mel always strived to give a voice to the voiceless. She explored issues rarely tackled by the mainstream film industry.

In her first film, Rain, Mel offers a poetic portrayal of a young woman’s growing political awareness. The woman, a typist, is released from the toil of her job when she encounters a man distributing leaflets on a rainy day. The meeting politicizes her, and her life gains new meaning as she devotes herself to social causes. Using John Coltrane’s song “After the Rain,” Mel’s narration considers rainy days and their impact. The rain in this short film signifies renewal and offers “a chance to recollect, a cool out.”  Rain received an honorable mention at Los Angeles' Black Talkies on Parade festival in 1982.

Her second film, “Nappy Headed Lady,” later renamed “Pigtail Blues,” is a 1960’s tale of a nappy headed lady in waiting. During this time period, troubles of a young girl seem so small in the scheme of things as Pigtail blues depicts a young woman growing up in the 60’s who rebels against her parents’ desire to have her hair straightened, preferring an afro hairstyle instead. The film explores the effects of white standards of beauty on black women’s self-concept. Documentary footage from the 60’s connects the protagonist’s struggle to the nationwide black movement.

After UCLA, Mel worked with Capitol Records and later with Continental Cable Company producing local television shows focusing on issues pertinent to the black community. Mel was passionate about teaching the younger generation to love and appreciate the art of filmmaking. She worked with the Pan African Film Festival as the Director of the Student Festival and she held this title for many years. Mel later received her teaching credentials and joined the faculty of 32nd Street School in Los Angeles where she taught Humanities and Film to middle and high school students. There, she created a cable talk show for her students.

In 2003, Mel passed away from breast cancer. Her spirit and love for film live on in her children, her friends and family, her colleagues, and the thousands of people she impacted through her life’s work.

Location: W Olympic Blvd & Alandele Ave, Los Angeles, CA

Natalie V. Grant is an African American artist from Brooklyn, NY. In 2020, she received her BFA in Photography & Video from the School of Visual Arts. She works primarily in photography and is a self-taught illustrator and textile artist. Grant’s work is informed by her passion for raising awareness of stereotypes and injustice within the black community. Her work can be described as personal and meaningful. She cares deeply about this because she believes it’s important for everyone to come together as a society.

Throughout college, Grant worked on perfecting her “In Hair We Trust” series. She turned this project into an installation and was featured at the SVA Mentor Show at SVA Chelsea Gallery. In addition, in 2021, she planned and curated her first solo show, “Beyond Our Skin.” The show was dedicated to the Black Lives Matter Movement and took place during Juneteenth weekend. Located in Brooklyn, NY, at Stratosphere Studios.

In 2023, Grant curated her first group exhibition. She uses "Beyond Our Skin" as an art project to give black artists the opportunity to showcase their artwork, while bringing the community together. In celebration of Juneteenth and Black culture. This show featured the work of 6 artists including herself. Taking place at Thames Art Center in Brooklyn, New York. In 2024, Grant had her first international group show in Paris, France hosted by The Holy Art Gallery.

Currently, she works at Fashionphile as an eCommerce photographer, shooting high-quality luxury items. Outside of work, Grant's goal is to remind African Americans of their worth. At the same time, stressing to her viewers the importance of equality.

Artist Statement:

The American Dream is the belief in equality. The idea that every citizen no matter their race or social class can achieve success. In modern-day America, that’s not true. We face countless obstacles. We live in a country with a broken system. People who look like me don’t always receive the equality that America advertises. 

While I wear this American flag I’m putting this country under the microscope. I’m holding it accountable and clutching it tightly when it fails to protect us. America, the land of the free. Is this the price we pay for our freedom?

Connect with Natalie at @notoriouscreations_.

Location: Washington Blvd & Hargis St, Culver City, CA

Location: N Gower St & Carlton Way, Los Angeles, CA

Shenny de Los Angeles is a Dominican-American Interdisciplinary Artist and Filmmaker from Central Florida. Shenny writes and performs with a spirit so tenacious, it alchemizes the complicated beauty of being alive. Her stories are anchored in unearthing mother wounds, our relationship to nature, girlhood, Black Caribbean folklore, and surviving Florida. Her experimental short film, the ritual to beauty, was distributed by The New Yorker and received The Grand Jury Prize at Slamdance. Her films and theatrical work have been featured in festivals and institutions such as the British Film Institute, BlackStar Film Festival, Hot Docs Film Festival, Harlem Stage, Mabou Mines Theatre, and Brooklyn Arts Exchange. Shortlisted for the 2025 Creative Capital Award Cycle for her project, “looking for Zora again”, Shenny is currently researching the life of Zora Neale Hurston, to create a script (both for film and ritual play/live performance) that envisions a post-apocalyptic Eatonville, Florida where Black writers are being erased from the cultural consciousness.

Connect with Shenny de Los Angeles at @angeloftongue.

Amanda Morell “iiritu” is a Bronx-native of Dominican and Puerto Rican heritage, celebrated for her visionary approach to independent filmmaking and editing. With a distinct ability to weave narratives that intertwine nature, emotion, and the cyclical nature of memory, her work resonates deeply, examining the enduring impact of the past on our present lives.Her films have earned widespread acclaim, showcasing at institutions and festivals, including the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, BRIC, the Martha's Vineyard African American Film Festival, GLAAD, and Blackstar Film Festival. A skilled storyteller, her scripts have been recognized as finalists for CoverFly's Screencraft Film Fund and the Shorty Awards' Elevate Creators Fund.In her most recent achievement, she was commissioned by the Bronx Council of the Arts to host a table reading for her short film, “Colors We Made”. A deeply personal project, addressing maternal mortality in Black and Brown communities, serving as the centerpiece for a community engagement event in March 2025. Additionally, she recently directed a short film, “hija de Florinda”, executive produced by The Center of Cultural Power, set to embark on its film festival journey 2025. With every project, she continues to push boundaries, creating impactful stories that amplify underrepresented voices and inspire meaningful change.

Connect with Amanda at @_iiritu_.

Location: Western Ave & Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA

Solange Knowles is a visionary artist whose multidisciplinary work interlaces spiritual exploration with cultural resonance. Through transformative projects such as the Grammy-winning album A Seat at the Table—which also earned her Harvard University's "Artist of the Year" award—and the critically acclaimed follow-up When I Get Home, Solange imagines new worlds that inspire and empower future generations.

Her 2019 album, When I Get Home, delves into the concept of origin, exploring how personal evolution shapes what we carry forward and what we leave behind. Accompanying the album, Solange directed an interdisciplinary film that premiered at  institutions such as LACMA, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. A special director’s cut of the film was later featured on the Criterion Channel. Other films include “We Sleep In Our Clothes” (2017) for the Tate Museum and “Metatronia”(2018), which debuted at the Hammer Museum, both showcasing her visionary approach to storytelling through movement and visual art. 

Her artistic reach extends across mediums and stages worldwide, with celebrated performances at venues like La Biennale di Venezia, the Getty, and the Guggenheim Museum.  In 2022, Solange debuted Villanelle for Time, an original score for the New York City Ballet, demonstrating her boundless creativity and ability to transcend artistic boundaries. In 2024, the artist's first sculpture titled "Orion's Rise", debuted at The MET for museum exhibition, “Flight Into Egypt”.  

Solange is also the founder and curator of Saint Heron, an institution dedicated to amplifying underrepresented voices in art, design, and literature. Through Saint Heron, she has launched a free community library of rare and out-of-print books, collaborated with the MoMA Design Store on a glassware collection, and introduced Eldorado Ballroom, a live performance series praised by The New York Times for its comprehensive celebration of Black creative expression and its reimagining of how these histories should be remembered.

Connect with Solange at @solangeknowles & @saintheron.

Location: W Jefferson Blvd & Chesapeake Ave, Los Angeles, CA

Zion Estrada (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist researcher. Her work flows between archival assemblage filmmaking, sonic collage production and experiential design centering human and more-than-human (re)connection.

Expanding on Felecia Davis and the The Black History in Centre County, Pennsylvania historical team’s layered map series of Black spatial and temporal movement in Bellefonte, PA; Estrada compiles a folded visual essay that joins the tellurian history of Bellefonte and the Allegheny River region with the movement of Free Black people on the Underground Railroad. Overlaying architectural maps of Bellefonte and images of the prehistoric artifacts of the land, the work exposes the interdependent histories of Black refuge and refusal in Bellefonte, PA with the land.

This still from Unfolded Histories_Bellefonte_Mapping Blackness_ (2024) acts as a palimpsest of the overlapping historical shifts in land and socio-political intimacies of Black femme liberatory practice. Jessie Crawley, featured in the image from the 1930’s , was one matriarch of a five generational Black family in Bellefonte, PA. Meditating on her resting posture and the floating river-like movement of the prehistoric fossils, excavated from the region, viewers are invited to remember the femme labor poured into the creation of Black communities and their unseen connection to the slow passing shifts of their landscapes.

In many ways the land recalls memories that humans cannot. Estrada weaves the technology of Black femme memory keeping to imagine an immaterial archive of stories that have molded our present and subsequent futures. If the land can change so drastically with such depth, so can our realities.

Connect with Zion at @zionestrada & @blackdiscourse.co.

Curators

Zehra Zehra is the Founder of Womxn in Windows, a curator, and cultural producer with over a decade's experience in the art and design world. She founded WxW in 2019 to be an ever evolving platform that presents video-based art and film when she saw a need for more women (cis, trans and non-binary inclusive) of diverse backgrounds to have opportunities to both show their work in public spaces and engage with one another. 

Connect with Zehra Zehra on Instagram at @zehrahmed.

Kilo Kish is an interdisciplinary artist working in music, film, installation, performance and the written word. Her work is characterized by existentialism, absurdity and humor, explored through popular media formats like songs and music videos. Her work has been featured in Vogue, W Magazine, The New York Times, Pitchfork, Dazed, The Guardian, and Billboard, among others. Her films have screened at the Getty Center, The Hammer Museum, and the Museum of Image and Sound in Brazil. 

Her most recent exploration is American Gurl, an album and on going art exploration. First initiated to explore the current state of the entertainment industry and the expectations placed on artists, further questions emerged around national history, identity, dreaming in America. These works were on view in 2022 as Times Square Arts Council's Midnight Moment, the world's largest, longest-running digital art exhibition. American Gurl served as the curatorial concept for a group exhibition at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles in 2023. 

Connect with Kilo Kish on Instagram at @kilokish.

Participating Organizations

Womxn in Windows is a platform for the perspectives of women on culture, identity and society. What started as an annual public exhibition of women-made art films in storefront windows is now on a mission to support intergenerational and cross-cultural dialogue. WxW has been regarded by the LA Times as 'a video art show made for this moment' and by LA Weekly as 'an installation that challenges conventions of female representation'. Through the years WxW has shown the works of digital artists and filmmakers such as Carrie Mae Weems, Lorna Simpson, Martine Syms, Ja'tovia Gary, Kilo Kish, Ali ma Lee, Christine Yuan, Yumna Al Arashi & Arshia Fatima Haq among many others. 

Connect with Womxn in Windows on Instagram at @womxninwindows.

Founded in 2015, SaveArtSpace is a non-profit organization that works to create an urban gallery experience, launching exhibitions that address intersectional themes and foster a message of social change that benefits the working class. By placing culture over commercialism, SaveArtSpace aims to empower artists from all walks of life and inspire a new generation of young creatives and activists.

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