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Artist in Residence Program Overview

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Artist in Residence (AIR) pilot initiative to address critical water quality challenges was launched in 2024.  The AiR Pilot Initiative aligns with the EPA’s commitment to working hand-in-hand with state and local partners to ensure clean water and to restore and maintain oceans, watersheds and their aquatic ecosystems. This pilot is intended to demonstrate how arts and culture can help inform government efforts to work more effectively with communities, build understanding of water quality and other environmental concerns, build stronger connections between communities and natural resources, and better meet communities’ unique needs. 

Ultimately, through the AIR pilot, the EPA intends to support selected National Estuary Program (NEP) and Urban Waters Federal Partnership locations in their efforts to demonstrate how arts and culture can help inform efforts to work more effectively with communities, build understanding of water quality and other environmental concerns, build stronger connections between communities and natural resources, and better meet communities’ unique needs.

The EPA AIR pilot arose in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and will support a broad range of local artists and culture bearers in six geographic areas within National Estuary Programs (NEP) and Urban Waters Federal Partnership (UWFP) locations. These locations include:

1. The Passaic River and Bronx and Harlem Rivers Urban Waters Federal Partnerships: New York-New Jersey Harbor and Estuary Program
2. The San Juan Bay Estuary Partnership
3. The Greater Philadelphia Area/Delaware River Watershed Urban Waters Federal Partnership: Partnership for the Delaware Estuary
4. The Green-Duwamish Watershed Urban Waters Federal Partnership: Puget Sound Partnership
5. The Middle Rio Grande/Albuquerque Urban Waters Federal Partnership
6. Massachusetts Bays National Estuary Partnership/Mystic River Watershed

MRG Artist in Residence Program

The Middle Rio Grande River Artist in Residence program will consist of an investigatory phase, during which the artist will be embedded in Ciudad’s organization to get to know our work, our watershed, and our communities. During the investigatory phase, the artist will propose a creative project based on their experience. Once accepted, the artist will have up to fifteen months to implement the creative project. Throughout the residency, artists are expected to participate in and generate community engagement activities.

During the implementation phase, the artist will be responsible for producing the artwork and carrying out the community engagement plan with support from Ciudad and regular check-ins with the project team.

Meet our Artist!

Born in Albuquerque, raised in Las Cruces and with family in Laguna Pueblo, Margarita has ties across New Mexico. Her multi-ethnic background (Mexican-American, Laguna Pueblo & Santa Clara Pueblo) is core to her art practice. She is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and muralist. Her work is interdisciplinary and heavily grounded in clay.  She resides in the South Valley of Albuquerque, with her partner, their daughter and three pugs.

Margarita plans to install a series of seeded adobe sculptures in the Middle Rio Grande Watershed as well as a permanent mosaic installation. Her process will include multiple community engagement opportunties including tile and olla making workshops. Learn more about Margarita's past projects. 

Latest Updates as of October 2025

A lot has happened this summer with the AiR program! We are continuing to work with City Open Space to incorporate Margarita's watershed mosaic sculpture into the Site Plan for the Tijeras Bio-Zone Education Center. We are still planning on pouring the concrete in Spring 2026. Two community design workshops for the mosaic have been scheduled at the Bio-Zone on October 15th from 5:30-7pm as well as October 29th from 5:30-7pm. (email annie@ciudadswcd.org with questions)

The first adobe sculpture installation went in at Three Sisters Collective this September! We've been working with Rio Grande Return to use locally collected seed for each adobe sculpture and it has been fun visiting the Casa San Ysidro Heritage Farm to see how those seeds are grown and harvested. The Coronado Historic Site adobe installation will be scheduled for late October or early November. 

We had to reschedule the garden olla workshops at Bernalillo Community Museum to November 18th and 21st from 9-12pm. Margarita is also training the Agri Nature Center YCC crew how to make garden ollas and they will be donating 60 of them to Ciudad and the city's conservation project at the Tijeras Bio-Zone Education Center! Those training sessions will be late September and early October. Margarita will then host a workshop open to the community at the Agri Nature Center on October 8th and 10th from 5-7:30pm. 

Finally, we've been working with the Bernalillo County Arts Board to get permission to do an installation at Sanchez Farms in the South Valley. More information to come. 

See Margarita's proposed sites below!