Piper Fellow:
Carmen Guerrero

As Executive Director of the Cultural Coalition, Carmen Guerrero produces annual community festivals including Mikiztli, the Día de Los Muertos Festival (Phoenix); the Mask Alive Festival (Mesa), Portal Festival at S’edav Va’aki Museum, and El Puente Festival (Tempe). Under her leadership, the Cultural Coalition has grown to partner with numerous local arts organizations and artists. As an artistic producer, she is committed and dedicated to issues of cultural literacy and social justice. As an educator and teaching artist for various area schools, she shares her indigenous roots through music and art to foster multicultural understanding. As an artivist/arts advocate, she co-founded Xicanindio (now Xico, Inc.), the Arizona Latino Arts Center, and the Cultural Coalition.

Guerrero’s Fellowship will allow her the time and resources to strengthen her leadership and take the Cultural Coalition to the next level. She plans to visit nationally recognized and established art and indigenous museums that share similar missions focused on promoting Indigenous Art and preservation of ancestral practices. Guerrero will meet with curators and directors who are leaders in diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion, as well as decolonization practices.

A Brazilian by birth, Guerrero has been a musician and a beader since age 5. She is a descendant of the Kambiwá tribe from the northern state of Pernambuco. Upon moving to Arizona, she formed the band Zúm Zúm Zúm and currently sings and plays vibraphones, guitar, and accordion.