Isa Farfan


DIGITAL REPORTING

For my absolute most recent work check out my MUCK RACK.

Selected work samples:

DACA-Recipient Artists Share Their Stories as Program Hangs by a Thread

The death of a family member brought Miguel Martinez, a painter and teaching artist living in New York City, back to Mexico earlier this year for the first time since he left his Guanajuato hometown for Houston, Texas, 23 years ago, when he was nine years old.Because of his immigration status, Martinez needed special permission, known as advance parole, to leave and return to the United States. Even with permission, reentry is not a guarantee. Martinez is one of more than half a million recipien...

What Happened to the Art in the Columbia Student Encampments?

On the morning of April 29, before the occupation of Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall, a group of students gathered to paint the banners that would transform the Ivy League lecture building into “Hind’s Hall” in a tribute to Hind Rajab, a Palestinian child killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.

“The paint was still wet when the banners arrived at the hall,” a Barnard College student who painted the Hind’s Hall banner told Hyperallergic. The student spoke under the condition of anonymity, citing d

International students risk immigration status to engage in Gaza protests

Reliant on visas to remain in the US, foreign students face heightened consequences for involvement in campus protests.

New York, New York – Israel’s war in Gaza is personal for Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil.

A 29-year-old Palestinian refugee raised in Syria, Khalil wanted to get involved in the on-campus activism against the war, but he was nervous.

Khalil faced a dilemma common to international students: He was in the United States on a F-1 student visa. His ability to stay in

Lawmakers, advocates call on military to do more to address violence against Native Hawaiian women

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Advocates and lawmakers are calling on the military to bolster their response to a state-commissioned report on violence against Hawaii women and girls.

The Missing and Murdered Native Hawaiian Women and Girls Task Force report, which was released last year, showed Native Hawaiian girls represent a disproportionate of missing children in and that women subjected to sex trafficking are at higher risk of going missing or being murdered.

The report also found a worrisom

Secretary Haaland stresses importance of indigenous knowledge in ‘era of climate crisis’

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and Hawaii leaders gathered in Heeia on Tuesday to underscore the importance of indigenous knowledge preservation in conservation efforts.

“I see healing all over this area where people are bringing back native plants and native ways of doing things and I think that indigenous knowledge is one of the absolute most important things that we can practice in this era of the climate crisis,” Haaland said.

On the grounds of Kakoo

Domestic violence changed her life. Now, she’s trying to end the cycle for other Native Hawaiian women

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - About 25 years ago, Dayna Schultz was beaten so severely by an intimate partner, she was hospitalized.

Living in military housing at the time, she says she was also forced off base on the mainland. She decided to return to the islands.

This trauma, and her aloha, motivated her to advocate for others in similar situations, especially other Native Hawaiian women.

“I’m still healing … 25 years later. But as an advocate, a lifelong advocate, I’ve been doing this work,”

Maui’s Latino community contends with destruction, grief and immigration fears after fires

Lahaina, the historic town on the island of Maui where Kimberly Romero lived, worked and sent her 5-year-old daughter to school, was already in flames when they fled this month with just minutes to spare. Mother and daughter found housing in an Airbnb. But now, Romero faces an uncertain future as her home and belongings were destroyed. Originally from Honduras, Romero moved to Lahaina a year ago and was just getting to know what she called a “homey” Latino community.

“I did see pictures of my a

The saga of Celsius: What the energy drink reveals about tensions between Barnard Dining and students - Columbia Spectator

In December 2021, the @barnarddining Instagram account posted a picture of two women wearing “Celsius. Live Fit.” shirts and masks and holding the popular energy drinks in their hands. The image’s caption announced that the energy drinks would now be available in the Diana Center Cafe and Liz’s Place, and that the drinks contained “0 calories,” “accelerate metabolism,” and “burn body fat.”

The NYC Bodega: A History of Violence and Resilience

You probably won’t find Jesus next to ketchup and mayonnaise anywhere but a New York City bodega where the city’s character, diversity, and history are embodied in a physical space. Morning to night and night into morning, bodegas are open, offering an assortment of goods including New York’s famous Chopped Cheese sandwich, as well as the head-turning bodega cat.

The Spanish term “bodega,” dating back to the 1840s, originally referred to wine cellars, the hull of ships, and warehouses. Today in

Other Work

Three Charged With Hate Crimes for Vandalizing Homes of Brooklyn Museum Leaders

Three individuals have been charged with “making a terroristic threat as a hate crime” in connection with the vandalism of four Brooklyn Museum leaders’ homes this summer, according to a statement from Brooklyn District Attorney (DA) Eric Gonzalez today, November 4.The residences of Director Anne Pasternak, Board Chair Barbara Vogelstein, Board Treasurer Neil Simpkins, and President and Chief Operating Officer Kimberly Panicek Trueblood were graffitied with anti-Zionist messages and splashed wit...

Body Found in Search for Missing British Artist Sarah Cunningham

This is not a paywall

You can keep reading for free! At Hyperallergic, we strive to make art more inclusive, so you’ll never hit a paywall when reading our articles. But, as an independent publication, we rely on readers like you to keep our high-quality coverage free and accessible. 

Please consider joining us as a member to support independent journalism.

Become a member

Already a member? Sign in here.









London police said a body...

Crudely Gesturing Trump Effigy Appears in Philadelphia

The anonymous artist behind two DC sculptures commemorating insurrectionist fecal matter on Nancy Pelosi’s desk and Charlottesville white supremacists’ tiki torches may have struck again — or inspired someone else, this time in Philadelphia. Charlotte Cohen, executive director of the city’s Association for Public Art, told Hyperallergic that she was unaware of a crudely gesturing golden statue of Donald Trump installed behind artist Gerhard Marcks’s bronze “Maja” (1942) in Maja Park until a repo...

Six Artists Open Up About Voting in the US Election

Arizona photographer Sama Alshaibi said Democratic canvassers frequently knock on her door, sometimes up to three times a day. But she said she feels they’re not looking for her vote as an Iraqi-Palestinian in the battleground state’s neck-and-neck race. “My husband is who they want to turn out the vote for,” Alshaibi told Hyperallergic. “They have never once asked what I’m doing.” Born in Iraq, Alshaibi became eligible to vote in 2004 during former President George W. Bush’s second-term bid. Sh...

“Gay Halloween” Meme Enters the Queer Canon

Is it your polyester Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz costume purchased from your local Spirit Halloween pop-up store? Nope, put that back. You can leave the recycled Disney princess dresses from years past at the bottom of your hamper, too, because we’re taking something else out of the closet this year …Gone are the days of trying to look good in a sl*tty costume version of your favorite movie character as we pave the way to normalize wearing a car passenger seat inspired by Chappell Roan’s song...

Whitney Museum Could Expand Into Historic Meat Market Next Door

One of the last standing meat markets in New York City’s Meatpacking District could soon be converted into an extension of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Mayor Eric Adams said yesterday, October 28.Adams, who was charged with bribery and campaign finance offenses last month, had announced a broader action plan to transform several New York City sites into “24/7 Live, Work, Play, and Learn Communities” in December 2022. Now, his administration and the city-owned Gansevoort Market co-op, whic...

25K+ Artists Decry “Unlicensed Use of Creative Works” to Train AI

Over 25,000 artists and cultural workers and counting have signed a new petition with a simple, one-line message: “The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted.”The brief statement was authored by music composer and former Stability AI executive Ed Newton-Rex, who resigned last year because he disagreed with the company’s use of copyrighted creative work for free under “fai...

Canadian Cultural Center Shutters Exhibition Over Palestine References

A day after the opening of Expressions of Critical Thought, an exhibition at the Aurora Cultural Center featuring works by six Canadian artists including Hala Alsalman, she was informed the show would be “temporarily closed.” Aurora Cultural Center, a nonprofit organization located in its namesake town one hour outside Toronto, halted the exhibition after some locals complained that the works on view were antisemitic. Curated by members of community zine Carousel Collective, the show explored mi...

Minnesota Nonprofit Takes the Lead in Guaranteed Income for Artists

A guaranteed income program in Minnesota has doled out $500 a month to cohorts of urban and rural artists — no strings attached — since April 2021. Coming mid-September, Springboard for the Arts, the nonprofit behind the initiative, is launching a public art exhibition in St. Paul to advocate for guaranteed income programs. Artists in the show received a $5,000 grant, in addition to monthly payments, to produce works commemorating the fund’s impact as the current phase of pilot is set to wind do...

Ancient Stone Carvings in Turkey Could Be the World's Oldest Calendar

Scientists at the University of Edinburgh may have found the world’s oldest lunisolar calendar on the pillars of Gӧbekli Tepe, a Pre-Pottery Neolithic complex in Turkey, according to new research.The discovery also points to a destructive comet strike as the possible basis for the site’s intended use as a place of worship for a religious cult. The name Gӧbekli Tepe is a translation adapted from the Armenian name Portasar, meaning “mountain navel.”A study published in Time and Mind: The Journal o...

Washington Post Nixes Weekly Local Art Column 

The Washington Post eliminated its weekly In the Galleries art column effective immediately, as first reported in BmoreArt and confirmed by Hyperallergic. In an email sent to several DC-area art exhibition spaces on Monday, August 19, column author and critic Mark Jenkins announced the series would shut down after the last iteration runs in this Sunday’s print edition. Jenkins, a freelance critic, authored the column for 13 years. It ran online each Friday.Jenkins’s In the Galleries series focus...

School Is Back in Session, and So Are AI Art Classes

There’s a new addition to the course catalog at Ringling College of Art and Design, a small private art school in southwest Florida: an Artificial Intelligence Undergraduate Certificate. The college claimed its new program is the first-of-its-kind AI certificate at an undergraduate arts institution in a news release earlier this month. Other schools in the United States offer courses and certificates focused on the integration of artificial intelligence and creative work, and educators across th...

Rothko Chapel Paintings Damaged by Hurricane Beryl

This is not a paywall

You can keep reading for free! At Hyperallergic, we strive to make art more inclusive, so you’ll never hit a paywall when reading our articles. But, as an independent publication, we rely on readers like you to keep our high-quality coverage free and accessible. 

Please consider joining us as a member to support independent journalism.

Become a member

Already a member? Sign in here.









The Rothko Chapel in Hous...

Judge Says Artists Can Sue AI Companies for Using Their Work

A group of 10 visual artists can proceed with copyright claims against four companies using text-to-image generative AI, a California judge ruled Monday, August 12.The artists filed a class-action lawsuit against Stability, Midjourney, DeviantArt, and Runway with the United States District Court in Northern California last November, alleging that the image generator Stable Diffusion uses their artwork as “training.” The original lawsuit also alleged that the generator, which the four companies e...

Another Tourist Has Carved Initials Into an Ancient Pompeii House

This is not a paywall

You can keep reading for free! At Hyperallergic, we strive to make art more inclusive, so you’ll never hit a paywall when reading our articles. But, as an independent publication, we rely on readers like you to keep our high-quality coverage free and accessible. 

Please consider joining us as a member to support independent journalism.

Become a member

Already a member? Sign in here.









An English tourist has be...

“A Very Old Dream”: NYC to Get Its First Dominican Culture Center

New York City is getting its first center for Dominican arts and culture, State Governor Kathy Hochul announced last Sunday, August 11, during the Dominican Day Parade. The City University of New York’s Dominican Studies Institute (CUNY DSI) will helm the development of the free-entry institution, which will include an exhibition space for works by Latine artists; a theater for music performances, screenings, and lectures; and a studio to record oral histories of Dominicans in Washington Heights...

Photos of Olympic Divers’ Faces Have the Internet in Tears

It can’t be easy to set the correct shutter speed to capture the majestic plunge — or bizarre expressions — of an Olympic diver dropping off the board at 35 miles per hour, let alone two synchronized divers flying down together.Sports photographers’ snapshots of Olympic divers, often pictured grimacing, wincing, or making other distorted faces caused by the velocity of their fall while holding tightly onto their knees, had the internet in tears this summer (and during Olympics past). Getty Image...

Sprawling Sculpture Series Blooms Across Harlem’s Parks

After a particularly torrential rainstorm in April, curator Savona Bailey-McClain found herself wading through a flooded Morningside Park on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Alongside her were sculptors scoping out the ideal location to place their artworks as part of the Harlem Sculpture Gardens. Trudging through the waterlogged park, Bailey-McClain and the artists laid the foundation for the public art project and an artist-backed climate justice effort.The neighborhood’s largest public art show t...

A Nudist Art Exhibition That You Can See Naked

A new multimedia exhibition at Marseille’s Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations (Mucem) documents the naked truth of the rise of Europe’s nudist communities from the perspective of a country often characterized as a nudist haven.And it gets even better than that: For as little as €7 (~$7.64), you can walk through the show, Paradis naturistes, completely naked. “In all the museums of the world, representations of paradise, of Eve and Adam, never deviate from this image. They live na...

Philadelphia Announces New Armenian Heritage Walk 

Fifty years after Philadelphia’s “Young Meher” statue was first erected by Armenian Americans on the United States Bicentennial, the heroic figure will be at the center of a new permanent public art exhibition slated for a 2026 unveiling. The Armenian Heritage Walk will be positioned in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA). The news of the forthcoming commemorative space comes as experts warn of a “cultural genocide” as the Azerbaijani regime destroys Armenian churches and other heritag...

Storm King Art Center Workers Celebrate First Union Contracts

Workers at the Storm King Art Center (SKAC) in New York’s Hudson Valley passed their first-ever union contracts in late July after eight months of negotiations. Workers in the Visitor Services, Education, and Conservation departments as well as the gift shop and administrative offices at SKAC, an outdoor sculpture museum, are the latest group to reach a deal in union negotiations this year. In a photograph shared with Hyperallergic, a worker holds up a sign urging SKAC to be a “leader in the fie...

Anti-War Artist Released as Part of Russia-US Prisoner Swap

This is not a paywall

You can keep reading for free! At Hyperallergic, we strive to make art more inclusive, so you’ll never hit a paywall when reading our articles. But, as an independent publication, we rely on readers like you to keep our high-quality coverage free and accessible. 

Please consider joining us as a member to support independent journalism.

Become a member

Already a member? Sign in here.









Russian anti-war activist...

Botched Restoration in Spanish Church Yields Uncanny Cherubim

This is not a paywall

You can keep reading for free! At Hyperallergic, we strive to make art more inclusive, so you’ll never hit a paywall when reading our articles. But, as an independent publication, we rely on readers like you to keep our high-quality coverage free and accessible. 

Please consider joining us as a member to support independent journalism.

Become a member

Already a member? Sign in here.









What on earth happened to...

A Brooklyn Art Fabrication Venue Opens Its Doors to the Public

In the warehouse of what used to be the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Station power plant, small children toyed with pottery and even learned how to solder alongside the pros on Saturday, June 15.

As part of a “Community Art Day,” the nonprofit Powerhouse Arts opened its doors to all of Brooklyn for free for the first time since its debut last year. Usually a space for art fabrication, the 170,000-square-foot venue has long wanted to draw in locals of all artistic abilities, including young children.
Load More