SaveArtSpace is proud to present Immigrant Childhood & Our Nostalgia, a public art exhibition on billboard ad space in Los Angeles, CA, starting June 16, 2025, curated by Johanna Toruño.

I am envisioning this open call to welcome art by immigrants and children of immigrants especially those whose childhood was shaped around their own migration or their parents and how regardless of our differences many of us agree that we share so many unique experiences. Sometimes its the calling cards our parents used to use or a banana liquado after school or the nostalgia of a tia's living room where many celebrations and holidays were spent in rooms and houses decorated by new and old customs, panaderia calendars, and images of la virgen de guadalupe on the walls - there is so much beauty in the way our families created new normal and new homes with community. Whatever this means to you and your Art I'd love to see it and celebrate in large in the public spaces we love and exist in.

We invite artists of all ages and talents to submit their artwork between March 14 and May 5, 2025. This is an opportunity to have your work placed on billboard ad space in Los Angeles, CA.

Open call for art ends May 5, 2025. There is a $10 donation per image submission to participate, each donation is tax deductible and goes to producing the public art. Selected artists will be announced after May 19, 2025. Public art will be installed June 16, 2025 in Los Angeles, CA.

Curator

Johanna Toruño is a Salvadoran-born artist and Founder of the Unapologetic Street Series, utilizing the streets as a public platform and gallery. Her bold imagery and statements, often adorned in lush florals, celebrate queer, working class, and immigrant communities. Through her work, Toruño challenges social norms and centers messages of self-reflection and self-acceptance. Using a soft aesthetic with colors that remind her of home, Toruño brings storytelling and a chance for her audience to re-learn and re imagine their own self to accessible spaces. Her political and social messages highlight topics of  reimagining norms, and the joy of holding space for collective liberation. Johanna is a TED speaker and Lecturer at Universities like Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, and others. Johanna's work has been featured in The New York Times, Teen Vogue, NPR, Nylon, and more., Johanna lives and works in Los Angeles with her partner and 2 dogs. If she's not wheatpasting, she's cooking.

Connect with Johanna at @theunapologeticstreetseries & @johannareign.

SaveArtSpace

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.