Alixa García is a distinguished artist, award-winning poet, visionary thinker, published author, social and environmental justice leader, and organizational strategist. Her groundbreaking work with Climbing Poetree set the tone for years of art for movement building that has had significant ripple effects throughout the world.

With a 23-year background in social and environmental justice organizing, a lead thinker in creative strategies for social movements, curriculum developer, facilitator, and international speaker, Alixa's expertise has been instrumental in supporting justice leaders, scholars and students, community activists, environmental and social justice organizations, state representatives, and the nonprofit sector to realize their potential in the areas of creative blueprinting, trans-local and global organizing, and environmental education. Her unique approach centralizes art for movement building and the role of imagination as an essential tool for liberation.

Alixa is a sought-after public speaker, visual artist, and facilitator. Her work has been published by Whit Press, AK Press, Monacelli, Hatchett, & Daraja Press. She is an editorial board member of ERA Coalition & Fund for Women's Equality and lead curriculum developer and facilitator for the CS Fund Just Transitions Fellowship Cohort. She is honored to be invited to curate the Imagination Infrastructure Conference, 2024.

Her latest offering, a Course on the Imaginal: Cultivating the Visionary Self, uses what she calls Creative Somatics and Attention Intensive Practices to help move trauma and grief through and out of the body so that we may begin to unearth the visionary within. 

Artist Bio:

As a visual artist García has exhibited her work at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; CA; the Kunsthal KAdE Museum, Netherlands; the Pop-Up Museum, New York, New York; and the Manifest Justice Exhibition, Los Angeles, alongside Hank Willis Thomas and Shepard Fairey, among other world-renown artists. She has created large-scale murals in New York City, Cuba, and Jamaica, and was commissioned for a large scale mural by Tony Award-winning playwright, V (formerly Eve Ensler). García is a visual art awardee of the Global Arts Fund/Astrea, The National Association of Latino Arts & Culture Grant, The Rising Fund, and the V-Day Fund. She has been the recipient of multiple prestigious artist residencies including the Silver Arts Residency, Blue Mountain Center, and Omega Institute. 

In 2020 García was commissioned by Times Square Arts Alliance to create a piece for “Massages for the City” in honor of nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. The animation Superheroes Never Die was up on the Times Square mega-screens, as well as 1,800 LinkNYC kiosks and digital billboards across the 5 NYC boroughs, Boston, and Chicago. The piece was later commissioned by the Mint Museum in North Carolina. García has also been commissioned by Alicia Garza’s Lady Don’t Take No, Black Future Labs, For Freedoms, Wide Awakes, Education for Racial Equity, to name a few.

Alixa García is the Co-Founder & Co-Artistic Director of Climbing PoeTree, an internationally-renowned, award-winning social justice spoken word, hip-hop, and world music duo. Touring the globe, García has presented and performed at the The United Nations, T.E.D: Ideas Worth Spreading; on the main stage at Lightning in a Bottle, Eclipse, and Symbiosis music festivals; and In 2016 she performed on the main stage at the Women’s March for over 500K people on the streets of Washington D.C., a performance televised to millions world-wide.

She has been a keynote speaker and facilitator at hundreds of universities and conferences, from Harvard to Cornell. Throughout her career she has performed alongside powerhouses such as Janelle Monáe, Maxwell, Madonna, and Erykah Badu and cultural architects such as Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Vandana Shiva, and Cornel West.

She is the Co-Director & Co-Producer of the award-winning theater production and social justice movement strategy Hurricane Season: The Hidden Messages in Water. The production toured over 50 cities, traveling 11,000 miles on a bus converted to run on recycled vegetable oil, and gave a platform to over 250 grassroots organizations, supporting and deepening local organizing initiatives. Her artistic, educational, and organizing passions have taken her internationally from Mexico to South Africa, Cuba to Scotland, Amsterdam to Ecuador, and beyond. 

Alixa García | CV

VISUAL ARTS

For nearly 25 years, García has used the mediums of painting, interactive installation, animation, graphic design, and large-scale visual work to tell stories of, and inspire action that centralizes life.

Who’s Next: Up In Arms | 2013 - Present

Interactive installation of an 8’X49’ pencil drawing depicting larger-than-life portraits of children under the age of 12 killed by guns in the U.S. between 2012-2013. Exhibited at The Congress, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; This Is America | Art USA Today, Kunsthal KAdE Museum, Amersfoort, Netherlands. 

Superheroes Never Die | 2020 - Present

Animation honoring nurses during the Covid-19 pandemic, commissioned by Times Square Arts Alliance. Currently showing on the mega-screens at Times Square & 1,800 LinkNYC kiosks across the 5 boroughs in New York City, as well as billboards in Boston, M.A., Chicago, I.L., and the Mint Museum, Charlotte, N.C. 

Shadow Boxing | 2016 - Present  

Interactive installations comprised of large-scale watercolor paintings in handcrafted light-boxes depicting stories of LGBTQ undocumented to first-generation immigrants in the U.S. Installations include Queer Histories, Pop Up Museum, New York, NY; Manifesting Justice Exhibit, Los Angeles, CA; Currently on display at Astrea Foundation, New York, NY 

S.T.I.T.C.H.E.D | 2005 - Present

A multi-colored tapestries and story-gathering project holding more than 10,000 Stories, Testimonies, Intentions, Truths, Confessions, Healing, Expressions, & Dreams written by audience members and workshop participants across the nation. Installed at hundreds of universities, high schools, prisons, courthouses, music festivals, and conferences around the country and world, including the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; National Museum of the American Indian’s Rasmussen Museum (Smithsonian), Washington D.C; Standing Rock Reservation, ND; Rainbow Warrior, the Greenpeace International Ship.

 Murals (selection)

• Life Spirals Upwards, Private commission by Casa Presente, Carrapateira, Portugal | 2022

• The Goddess, Private commission by Eve Ensler, Kingston, NY | 2016

• Dar la Luz Public commission by Inter-Nos, with an international cohort of artists Santiago, Cuba | 2006

• Untitled, Public commission, Negril, Jamaica | 2006

VISUAL ART RESIDENCIES

Omega Institute, Rhinebek, NY | 2016, 2017, 2019
Blue Mountain Center, Blue Mountain Lake, NY | 2012, 2016, 2018
University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, IL | 2012, 2015, 2016

VISUAL ART AWARDS & GRANTS

Rising Fund Grant | 2020
National Association of Latino Arts & Culture Grant | 2016
Global Arts Fund Grant- Astrea Fellow | 2015

PRINT PUBLICATIONS

Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, AK Press, 2015

Kunst Versus Trump, FD Persoonlijk Magazine, Netherlands, 2020
This Is America, Art USA Today, Netherlands, 2020
Wide Awakes, Homme Magazine, United Kingdom, 2020

PERFORMANCE and KEYNOTES

(Excerpted)

2023 and 2024 See list of events here

2022
Rooted & Embodied: Our Bodies at the Borderland (global/online)
Bioneers National Conference, San Francisco, CA
Expanding Possibilities: Queer Ecology and Reimagining Ecology (global/online)
Creating Post Capitalist Futures: Living and Dying in Times of Crisis (global/online)
Creating a Psychedelic Future for All Conference, Portland, OR

2021
The Trailblazery (global/online)
Thrive: Beloved Community (global/online)
Reworlding Residency, La Fortuna Costa Rica

2020
Lightning in a Bottle Music Festival (global/online)
The Visionaries Summit Festival (global/online)
The Harmonic Convergence (global/online)
Musicology Tour, Hawai’i

2019
TED: Ideas Worth Spreading, San Francisco, CA
United Nations Women, New York, NY
Arcosanti Convergence, Arcosanti, AZ
YMCA Racial Justice Summit, Madison WI
Beloved Festival, Tidewaters, OR
Omega Institute, Rhinebeck, NY

2018
TED Women: Ideas Worth Spreading, Palm Springs, CA
Bioneers National Conference, Marin County, CA
The Summit, Eden, UT
Fuego A La Isla Festival, Chemnitz, Germany

2017
Other Futures Festival, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Aqui Festival, Andalusia, Spain
Eclipse Music Festival, Mitchell, OR
Women Workers Rising - In Solidarity With the General Strike, Washington D.C.
Franklin County Jail, Greenfield, MA

2016
Women’s March on Washington (main stage), Washington D.C.
Standing Rock Seventh Generation Medicine Concert, ND
Black Urban Growers/ National Black Farmers Conference, Harlem, NY
PBS Broadcast, WGBH Green Media Innovation Idea Lab, Boston, MA

Universities | 2003 - Present
Brown University, Providence, RI
Harvard University, Boston, MA
University of Hawaii, Big Island, HI
University of California, Various, CA
Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
Antioch College, Yellow Springs, OH
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
University of Mass, Amherst, MA
Dartmouth University, Dartmouth, MA
Yale University, New Haven, CT
Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA
University of Texas, Austin TX
Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, MI
University of Iowa, Iowa, WI
University of Oregon, Portland, OR
Mills College, Oakland, CA

KEYNOTE SPEAKER & PANELIST. A small selection of presentations and lectures. Full list and earlier years at: www.climbingpoetree.com  

2020
Trailblazery Gathering (global/online)
Bioneers National Conference (global/online. Bi-yearly keynotes 2013 - Present)

2019
Imagine Music Festival, Orcas Island, WA
Spirit of the Suffragettes, Troy NY
Deep Change Conference, White River Junction, VT
Racial Justice Summit, Madison WA
Visionary Summit, Sacramento, CA

2018
Beyond Cages and Abolition Summit, Los Angeles, CA
Standing in our Power, New York, NY
Back to Life Gathering, Vashon Island, WA
University of Colorado, Boulder, CO
Open Buffalo Society, Buffalo, NY

2017
Justice Works, Albany, NY
North Carolina Climate Justice Summit, Greensboro, NC
Franklin County Jail, Greenfield, MA
Lightning in a Bottle Music Festival, Bradley, CA
Omega Institute, Rhinebeck, NY
Eclipse Music Festival, Mitchell, OR
Temple University, Philadelphia, PA

2016
United Nations, New York, New York
People's Convention, Pittsburgh, PA County, CA
University of Colorado, Boulder CO
University of Mass, Amherst, MA
Omega Institute, Rhinebeck, NY

2015
The Schomburg Center, Harlem, NY
Hammerstein Ballroom, New York, NY
Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, NY
Boston Community Capital Conference, Boston, MA
Forum on Digital Media For STEM Learning, Climate Education, Boston, MA                                    
Antioch College, Yellow Springs Ohio

2014
Ella Baker Institute, Chicago University, CA
Connecting For Change, New Bedford, CA
International Development Exchange, Oakland, CA
Delaware Environmental Institute, Newark, DE
The Coalition Against Environmental Racism, Eugene, OR

2013
Bioneers by the Bay Conference, New Bedford, MA
Allied Media Conference, Detroit, MI
Building Unity Conference, Madison, WI
Social Justice, Real Justice Conference, Eugene, OR
Martin Luther King and Human Rights Conference, Iowa City, IA

SELECT PUBLICATIONS
Climbing PoeTree, Compilation of Poetry, Whit Press, 2014
Subversiones Magazine, Distrito Federal, Mexico, 2013
Variopinto Magazine, Distrito Federal, México, 2012
Ten Top, ArtForum, 2012
Pixelating: Black in New Dimensions, Museum of Contemporary African Diasporic Arts, 2012
Whole Thinking Journal, The Center for Whole Communities, 2010
The Matrix, Humboldt State University’s Women’s Resource Center, 2009
Colorlines Magazine, 2008

AWARDS & GRANTS
Geo Family Foundation Grant, 2019 & 2020
Rising Fund Grant, 2018, 2019, 2020
The Bioneers Award, 2017
Tides Fund Grant, 2016
Threshold Foundation Grant, 2015
Ms. Foundation Grant, 2014
Kindle Foundation, 2014
One Common Unity Award, 2010
Reel Sisters Film Festival- Best Director, Best Vision, 2008
Spark Plug Grant, 2008
The New York Women’s Foundation Grant, 2008