Samoan-Mexican artist and Long Beach native Maria Maea presents her first hometown exhibition in collaboration with LBCC students and MANA. Maea’s practice brings together land, memory, and material through palm weaving, used as both a sculptural form and a mode of ancestral storytelling. The organic materials— destined to return to the earth—gesture toward impermanence while honoring cultural resilience. 

Asking, Where do we exist as a collective? What do we stand for-and what can we no longer stand for? As We Come Together explores unity and solidarity through ephemeral sculptures made from foraged palm fronds and found materials. LBCC students contribute cast masks, gestures, amulets, and objects of protection, along with their voices and imagery of their neighborhoods. The collective embodiment of these unified figures reminds us of the power of our communal presence-how shared histories, resistance, and care can shape new forms of belonging and sustain us in the face of erasure

EXHIBITION DATES

• Artist-in Residence Dates: Apr 4 – May 15, 2026 | Gallery Open: Tuesday – Friday
• Opening Reception: Tues, May 19, 2026 | 5:00 – 8:00 p.m. at LAC, K-100
• Exhibition dates: May 19 – June 17, 2026

EXHIBITION READING LIST

Exhibition reading list created by English professor Dr. Kamisha Sullivan, Ed.D, Mana Program professors. 

• Reading list

ABOUT THE FEATURED ARTIST: MARIA MAEA

Maria Maea is a multidisciplinary artist working in sculpture, installation, performance, film and sound. Through her art practice, she deepens her connection to land, somatic memory, and ancestry. Her works act as a residue of her lived experience as a first generation Los Angeleno of Samoan and Mexican heritage. Using plants and repurposed found material gathered throughout Los Angeles, Maea builds film set-like sculptures that relate to storytelling & myth-making. With experience in film production, she understands the invisible labor and processes that happen behind the scenes and creates works that invite viewers into a cinematic universe of her own imagination.  She uses palm fronds foraged from the greater Los Angeles area to build these sculptures that play in the space between figurative and abstraction. These sculptures, called future ancestors, are made from concrete, rebar, collected objects and both living and dead plants. The work seeks to complicate art’s relationship with institutions around ideas of contamination and preservation. Many works structurally contain seed pods that over time will crumble to dust, however the seed will remain – making the artworks multi-generational. Maea’s greatest inspiration and collaborator is nature itself. Mythos and time also function as sculptural materials in the artist’s work, much in the same way as the plants, concrete, and rebar do. By composing pictures of family with family, Maea produces fragmentary, nonlinear narratives for herself and her relatives, which pointedly work against Western notions of both temporality and lineage.

Maea is a recipient of the 2023 Mohn LAND grantee, 2023 Capital Group Artadia Award, 2024 Latinx Artist Fellow by U.S. Latinx Art Forum and a 2026 Lightning Fund Awardee from Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE). Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Upcoming exhibitions include ”Aguas Divinas”, a collaboration between Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND) and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) on view at the Catalina Museum of Art & History garden in Spring 2027. 

To learn more about Maria’s artistic practice read this LA Times article. 

COMMUNITY WORKSHOP OVERVIEW

Maria Maea’s practice bridges land, memory, and material in a way that invites reflection and reclamation. As an artist of Samoan and Mexican descent raised in Long Beach, Maea uses palm weaving as both a sculptural technique and a gesture of ancestral storytelling. Her upcoming workshop, offers students and the LBCC community a chance to learn traditional weaving practices while engaging in collective dialogue around indigeneity, colonial erasure, and cultural continuity. Through hands-on participation, students won’t simply observe. The use of natural materials will provide them with a deeper understanding of how something as delicate as a frond can hold the strength of generations. The use of organic materials, which will eventually return to the earth, is a quiet reminder of the impermanence of all things and the resilience found in that truth.

Past Workshops

• Workshop – Mask Making: Fri, April 24, 2026 | 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. at LAC, K-100 
  Note: Workshops will be in the courtyard of the K-Building
• Workshop – Body & Movement Casting: Fri, May 1, 2026 | 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. at LAC, K-100 Note: Workshops will be in the courtyard of the K-Building
• Workshop – Stance! The Body in Movement & Building the Self: Mon, May 4 – Fri, May 15, 2026
  Open Lab hours in the Art Gallery from 11am-4pm  LAC, K-100 

LBCC STUDENT AND COMMUNITY PARTICIPANTS

EXHIBITION TEAM

• Curated by Karla Aguíñiga, Art Gallery & Exhibitions Manager
• Production support by Eve Tuilaepa Diaz
• Student Assistants: Noel Bobadilla, Isaac Acosta, Katherie Dominguez and Juan Pablo Rodriguez
• Graphic Design by Jonah Coloma 
• Title handlettering by Eddie Valencia
• Event Photography by Eric Jaipal
• Installation Photography by Gina Clyne

We thank the following faculty and staff for their support with the workshops and exhibition: Prof. ZZ Krebs, Prof. Kamisha Sullivan, Prof. Carolyn Castaño, Dr. Janét Hund, Matthew Segotta and the AAPI Desi Heritage Month Committee.

SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS

• Lead Sponsor: 
• Additional Support Provided by: