Apertura

Zeinabu irene Davis & Marc Arthur Chery Marinthia Gutiérrez Velazco Organized by San Diego Poet Laureate Paola Capó-García and Artist Victor De La Fuente APERTURA is a collection of 14 video works produced by a group of multi-generational San Diego/Tijuana-based artists. This exhibition is the culmination of a four-day workshop led in May of 2026 by San Diego Poet Laureate Paola Capó-García and artist Víctor De La Fuente. Eight participants came together as writers to reinterpret their lines through the lens as short films. To round out the exhibition, six other local artists were invited to contribute their own interpretations of poems via video. APERTURA, which means opening, calls for a more expansive way of experiencing poetry. We invite you to dwell in the intersection of poetics and film and to celebrate the different ways poetry can converge with visual art to tell the story of a city. Paola Capó-García is a poet and educator from San Juan, Puerto Rico. She is the author of CLAP FOR ME THAT’S NOT ME, selected by D.A. Powell as the winner of Rescue Press' 2017 Black Box Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in The Volta, The Texas Review, Puerto Rico en mi corazón, Latino Book Review, jubilat, Poetry Society of America, poets.org, and others. She currently resides in San Diego, where she will serve as the City's Poet Laureate from 2025-2027. Victor is a performing artist, actor, and arts educator. He grew up in the Imperial Valley and attended UCSD. During his time in art school he was heavily influenced by improvisational dance, theater, video art and performance art. His work is described as experimental comedic theater with elements of dance. Victor is currently a teacher at a high school teaching teens filmmaking and cinematography and a videographer for the San Diego arts community.