Visiting Artist - Carlos Zerpa

Carlos Zerpa who is an artist-in-residence at Corsicana Residency in Texas this fall, visited UTA campus on November 16, 2023. The program was organized by Lilia Kudelia at Visual Resource Commons, in collaboration with Art & Art History Department faculty Mason Lahue who teaches cinematic animation, motion graphics and cinema production, UTA FabLab Librarian Morgan Chivers, and Corsicana Artist & Writer Residency founder Kyle Hobratschk.

In a meeting with cinematic arts students, Carlos Zerpa presented and discussed his award winning animation projects focusing on workflows, techniques, and promotion strategies.



At the UTA FabLab, Zerpa engraved a solidarity sign designed a few years ago in collaboration with his colleagues at MECHA Coop. This imagery has become an iconic and most popular stencil across South American countries, appropriated by people for street signs and used in protests. The work portrays a Wayuu activists during one of the protests in Colombia, her hair contours matching the cartographic outline of South America. Wayuu people are second largest indigenous group in Colombia and Venezuela where MECHA coop is based.



Carlos Zerpa is a screenwriter, creative producer, director, and street artist based in Caracas, Venezuela. He is drawn to survivor-type characters that embark on high risk adventures to transform social conditions they refuse to comply with. In 2010 he co-founded the cooperative ECL-MECHA (www.mecha.pro) whose creative practice emerges at the intersection of storytelling, visual arts, and social commitment in South America and the Caribbean. MECHA’s work seeks to empower underrepresented characters by creating transgressive and irreverent narrative devices. MECHA produced several award-winning public arts, editorial, and animation projects.