Lucia Hierro

PLUS: What is the first thing you do when you wake up?

Lucia Hierro: That really depends on the morning. My partner enjoys bringing me a cup of coffee. Whatever it is, I’m quiet and move slowly. Sometimes I’ll put on some chill vibes music.

P: Where is your go-to place to eat (in NY) and why?

LH: I’ve tried so many great restaurants but there aren’t a lot of places that I frequently go back to y. In all honesty my mom’s! A close second is Dominican Restaurant Puerto Viejo in Brooklyn.

P: What neighborhood of New York attracts you the most?

LH: Honestly, it doesn’t get any better than Uptown Manhattan. Washington Heights and Inwood. I don’t just say this because I was born and raised there. It’s the music, the people. I love walking by and catching some Dominican slang I’ve never heard. It’s still a neighborhood. I bump into people that watched me grow up. My walks through the Cloisters are sacred.

P: What inspires you to do what you do everyday?

LH: I can’t say I have a specific driving force. A million little things that all stem from an endless curiosity and hyper-awareness of everyone and everything around me. I think the drive stems from my two life paths, Love and Justice/Equity.

P: What do you see as the relationship between culture, language, and food?

LH: They can all be unifying but have been historically weaponized; hierarchical (ie: how these tie into class structures).

P: What is it about everyday objects that intrigue you?

LH: On a sentimental note, objects are tied to our memories. They hold energy. 

I think it’s fascinating that we live and work for the accumulation and protection of things.  We shape our identities through things, our experiences are repackaged and sold back to us as things. Objects are also assigned values and affect our sense of self and relationships to one another. On the grander scale, objects become tied to the global socio-economics that we usually turn a blind eye to. Most of our issues stem from this apathy and/or the general frustration that comes from systems implicating humans and our precious things, memories, energy, selves into a capitalist narrative of supply and demand.

P: How do you think the role of the artist in society has changed over time?

LH: I think the role of the artist is the same. But technology has made people who call themselves artists and don’t fulfill this role more visible. 

P: A lot of your installations and prints incorporate collage. What attracts you to collage as an art form?

LH: A college has aspects of the readymade, combined with the immediacy and seriality of printmaking which closely ties into the everyday object. Collage allows for a direct relationship between medium and content.

P: What is the one thing that you would like to see more of in the art industry?

LH: BIPOC Women represented, collected, archived by galleries and museums.

P: Which three qualities in yourself are you most thankful for?

LH: My curiosity. My resilience. The moments my body has guided me towards the right choices.