Mariángeles Soto-Diaz

Interdisciplinary artist Mariángeles Soto-Díaz works across studio, installation, social practice and performance, using reparative modes of inquiry to decenter violence – epistemic, structural and domestic. In her studio practice, Soto-Díaz uses non-traditional materials such as neighborhood detritus, spices, UPC codes, rubber and coconuts, as a way to metabolize colonial histories and work towards epistemological justice. The social practice dimension of her work involves collaborations with martial artists, participatory projects, experimental performance, working at domestic violence shelters, and directing the nomadic Unconfirmed Makeshift Museum (UMM). Soto-Díaz’s work has been exhibited at institutions including the Orange County Museum of Art, MASS MoCA, El Museo del Barrio and the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, and has been featured in publications including Remains-Tomorrow: Themes in Contemporary Latin American Abstraction by curator Cecilia Fajardo-Hill (Hatje Cantz), the Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture Journal (UC Press), and Monique Roelofs’ Strange Tastes: Aesthetics and the Public in Latin American and Latinx Feminisms (Duke University Press, 2026). She holds masters degrees from the California Institute of the Arts and CGU, and at UC Irvine she is a Lecturer in the Department of Art and a Research Associate at the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center.