I am the co-founder of Mother of Pearl, an artist collective and creative incubator dedicated to fostering collaboration, building community and nurturing emerging artists. Since 2022, we have organized and facilitated over 40 events. Our programming has included multimedia art exhibitions, open mics, figure drawing and creative skill-share workshops, and an artist residency in San Francisco. Together we are cultivating a culture of abundance, symbiotic reciprocity, innovation and play.

ALCHEMY:
TRANSMUTING THE WOUND

FEB. 21. 2026

multi-media fine art
film projections
spoken word
music & movement performances

YOU ARE INVITED TO ENTER A PORTAL!
A space to sit with the wound and the dream at once:
A night of art, performance, and collective alchemy.

ALCHEMY: Transmuting the Wound was an immersive art show curated by Mother of Pearl Collective, bringing together emerging artists working across mediums to explore transformation, resilience, and the power of community. This show asked: How do we root in care while facing what hurts? How do we transmute the raw, murky material of our suffering into connection, hope, and new timelines?

The work moved through collective and personal memory, portals of change, and the web of energy that binds us to one another and to the earth. Where nature is teacher, earth is medicine, and our underworlds become sources of dream materia — fuel for mutual aid and imagination.

Throughout the evening, a series of live performances guided us through different portals: embodied lessons, offerings, and expressions that invited us to witness, feel, and transform together.







The audience gathers as Val Maerz grounds us with a guided meditation
and a beautiful spoken word piece



Melissa Wu moves us with a touching movement piece
to the song Beauty, end by Mustafa





Jazzy R&B and neo-sol sounds rise us out of decay
and give us wings in Amadi Sun’s debut performance





We journey through a portal and enter the Maximum Love Timeline, where
we pour our devotion and thank the trees, the sun and the beauty around us



NYD, royee & August Nandé weave their voices and emotion into the hour,
delicate melodies that linger in the air like melting snow






Folding doves for The C Cosmology’s Folding Futures mutual aid art activation, where each dove represents a martyred child in Gaza. This participatory activation was inspired by the communal craft of Origami that transforms grief into tangible hope and aid.  








Drinks sponsored by SWRL

Photos by Laura Penido

In August 2025, we curated MoPFest 2.0: an artist residency and retreat located in the Bay Area. A week of creation, discussions, outdoor activations and reflections within the natural landscape of Northern California culminated in a gallery show at The Faight Collective in San Francisco, and an intimate open mic performance and collective tarot reading within a magnificent grove of redwood trees.


‘Home’

As a collective founded by immigrants and third-culture kids, the idea of “What is home” is especially prescient for us, especially given the current socio-political climate. Home is a living, breathing space, an entity that nurtures, challenges and soothes us. How is home embodied for you? Who is permitted to call a place home? What is your relationship to our first home, planet Earth?

This show encouraged bi-coastal and cross-cultural exchange, exhibiting a collection of works from 14 artists from across the Bay Area and around the world. In the process, we encountered answers to our questions within a dazzling array of interpretations.

As we curated these submissions, we saw a progression emerge in the way our homes expand as we grow through life. We begin in an embodied, spiritual home in the womb. Then we expand into our domestic life, finding home in nature and our families. From there we learn to understand our belonging in the context of relationships - interpersonal, and then communal. How do we find Home in our communities, our cities, and our Earth? The exhibition was curated with a circular flow in mind along these themes, beginning with an earthly womb and closing back with a spiritual earth.





Our communal tapestry gently billows, a collective vision and dream map of the flourishing we long for

MoPFest 2.0 in the Bay

In August 2024, we curated MoPFest: a month of programming, which culminated in a gallery show, open mic night and film screening. This festival was an ode to and celebration of the beautiful growing community we’d created together over the past two years, and featured a myriad of artists, musicians, workshops and more.

SUCCULENCE: FALL ART EXPO

Nov. 2023
I co-produced an art expo:
A night of celebrating the succulent nature of community, art and gathering, through highlighting the work of locally based artists and performers.

The night consisted of:
multi-media fine art
film screening
DJ sets
live tattooing
performances
tarot reading


Sponsored by Guayaki Yerba Mate