Urbano Project welcomes Artist-in-Residence Nathalia JMag, a Colombian-American contemporary fashion designer who believes in sustainable and ethical approaches to apparel. Her work centers the intersection of design and eco-sustainability alongside an internal reimagining of the factory-labor driven fashion industry. From June 6-August 30, Map This: Sustainable Fashion, an exhibition featuring JMag’s fashion collections exploring design futures, green urbanisms, and climate change culture, will be on view at Urbano’s Jamaica Plain gallery; and will launch a Youth Artist Project collaboration with the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum as part of their upcoming exhibition Big Plans: Picturing Social Reform

Born in Colombia, JMag immigrated to the USA when she was 7 years old. Her perspective is a blend of cultures: she fuses her Colombian culture with her American culture to create one-of-a-kind designs. Her garments are fresh and new but also functional and comfortable. She prides herself in her eco-friendly and ethical designs; using a zero-waste design approach, choosing the most sustainable fabrics available to her, using all-natural dyes such as turmeric, and upcycling old clothing to give them new life. 

A Neighborhood Salon Luminary at the Gardner Museum, JMag is a professional fashion designer with a degree from Framingham State University.  She has participated in shows including Helsinki Fashion week, named by Vogue as the first sustainable fashion week; and was part of the Emmy-nominated show Project Runway. She is currently getting her Masters at RISD’s  Nature–Culture–Sustainability Studies program.

As Artist-in-Residence, JMag will teach Urbano’s youth artists sustainable textile design and techniques including printing, sewing, embroidering, and block printing. Classes will use mapping data created by students at Olin College that relates to themes from the Gardner’s upcoming exhibition Big Plans: Picturing Social Reform (June 20 - September 15, 2019). The Big Plans exhibition will feature city plans, archival materials, historical maps, and photographs to examine how landscape architects and photographers in the late 1800s and early 1900s advocated for social reform in Boston, New York, and Chicago, and how their work speaks to the urban challenges of our time.  

As part of the collaboration, Urbano’s YAP artists will develop and produce elements for a Map This textile intervention that will debut at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s free Neighborhood Nights Block Party on Thursday Aug 22nd from 5-9pm. These textiles and other work created by the class will be celebrated in a YAP exhibition opening at Urbano on August 24 from 6-8pm. The students’ work will be on view at Urbano, alongside JMag’s exhibition, until August 30.

View JMag's designs at her webshop and on Instagram @nathaliajmag.

Youth Artist Projects are in-depth long-term artistic explorations of Urbano’s annual themes  through the lens and mentorship of the Artist-in-Residence, resulting in one or more exhibitions/projects that are presented at Urbano and other public sites.

Urbano is open 1-6PM Tuesday-Friday and by appointment. Visit www.urbanoproject.org for more information.

ABOUT THE ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER MUSEUM COLLABORATION

Community Engagement at the Gardner will bring together Neighborhood Salon Luminary artist Nathalia JMag with local youth-serving partner organizations Urbano Project, Hyde Square Task Force, and Sisters Unchained and Olin College engineering students working with Academic Advisor Mimi Onuoha to consider the Big Plans: Picturing Social Reform exhibition in order to generate alternative maps of Boston communities.  JMag will facilitate hands-on textile workshops at community organizations engaging with both newly generated maps and historical works from the Big Plans exhibition as layers of visual imagery and aesthetic material. Artistic output from the youth workshops will be  further refined by JMag into interactive public-facing programming over the summer of 2019, culminating in an outdoor public celebration as part of the Gardner’s August 22, 2019 Neighborhood Night Block Party.

ABOUT URBANO PROJECT

Urbano Project is a non-profit art space that brings together practicing artists across disciplines, local youth, and community members to learn and experiment through place-based projects. Through artistic collaboration, participating youth and adults are challenged to create projects that take place both within the boundaries of our exhibition space and in the community beyond the walls of the studio. These projects span diverse artistic themes and disciplines, all rooted in the fundamental principles of collaboration, risk-taking, and creative and critical expression.

Contact: Nina Berger | Urbano Project

Phone: 617-543-1595 Email: ninajberger@gmail.com