Julia Justo

Embroidery, 17” x 10” x 12”

“Domestic Workers and Street Vendors” series is a socially engaged project that explores labor, migration and memory via textile works. It portrays New York based immigrant workers.

I asked my subjects to send me photos of themselves at their place of work. I created embroidery works based on their images. Community members are not just involved in the project, but they are co-designers and co-creators of the project.

Due to their legal status, participating workers in this project decided not to reveal their identities. The medium of embroidery allows me to acknowledge the contributions of the immigrant workers I portray while at the same time conceal and protect their identities.

In this time of exclusion and displacement, my work seeks to bring attention to personal stories of people often invisible to society while envisioning a more tolerant, respected and interdependent future.

Embroidery, 17” x 10” x 12”

“Domestic Workers and Street Vendors” series is a socially engaged project that explores labor, migration and memory via textile works. It portrays New York based immigrant workers.

I asked local my subjects to send me photos of themselves at their place of work. I created embroidery works based on their images. Community members are not just involved in the project, but they are co-designers and co-creators of the project.

Due to their legal status, participating workers in this project decided not to reveal their identities. The medium of embroidery allows me to acknowledge the contributions of the immigrant workers I portray while at the same time conceal and protect their identities.

In this time of exclusion and displacement, my work seeks to bring attention to personal stories of people often invisible to society while envisioning a more tolerant, respected and interdependent future.

Embroidery, 17” x 10” x 12”

Textile based installation

14 x 11 inch

Textile based installation

12 x 10 x 14 inch

Textile based installation

14 x 12 x 10 inch

Textile based installation

14 x 12 x 10 inch

Embroidery, 14 x 11 inch

Embroidery, 12 x 9 inch

Embroidery, 12 x 9 inch

Embroidery, 12 x 9 inch, 2022

“Street Vendors” is a socially engaged project that explores labor, memory and migration via textile works. It portrays New York based undocumented immigrants working with their children as street vendors. I asked street vendors to send me photos of themselves at their places of work. I created embroidery works based on those images. This way community members are not just involved in the project, but they are co-designers and co-creators of the project themselves. The medium of embroidery allows me to include the concept of repetition often found in manual labor, addressing notions of visibility related to immigrant labor in the U.S. Due to their legal status, participating workers in this “undocumented immigrant” project decided not to reveal their identities. The medium of embroidery allows me to acknowledge the contributions of the immigrant workers I portray while at the same time conceal and protect their identities.

Embroidery, 12 x 9 inch, 2022.

“Street Vendors” is a socially engaged project that explores labor, memory and migration via textile works. It portrays New York based undocumented immigrants working with their children as street vendors. I asked street vendors to send me photos of themselves at their places of work. I created embroidery works based on those images. This way community members are not just involved in the project, but they are co-designers and co-creators of the project themselves. The medium of embroidery allows me to include the concept of repetition often found in manual labor, addressing notions of visibility related to immigrant labor in the U.S. Due to their legal status, participating workers in this “undocumented immigrant” project decided not to reveal their identities. The medium of embroidery allows me to acknowledge the contributions of the immigrant workers I portray while at the same time conceal and protect their identities.

Embroidery, 12 x 9 inch

“Street Vendors” is a socially engaged project that explores labor, memory and migration via textile works. It portrays New York based undocumented immigrants working with their children as street vendors. I asked street vendors to send me photos of themselves at their places of work. I created embroidery works based on those images. This way community members are not just involved in the project, but they are co-designers and co-creators of the project themselves. The medium of embroidery allows me to include the concept of repetition often found in manual labor, addressing notions of visibility related to immigrant labor in the U.S. Due to their legal status, participating workers in this “undocumented immigrant” project decided not to reveal their identities. The medium of embroidery allows me to acknowledge the contributions of the immigrant workers I portray while at the same time conceal and protect their identities.

Embroidery, 12 x 9 inch

Embroidery, 12 x 9 inch

Embroidery, 12 x 9 inch

Embroidery, 12 x 9 inch

“Street Vendors” is a socially engaged project that explores labor, memory and migration via textile works. It portrays New York based undocumented immigrants working with their children as street vendors.

Artist Julia Justo asked local street vendors to send her photos of themselves at their places of work. Justo created embroidery works based on those photographic images.

Embroidery, 12 x 9 inch

Embroidery

12 x 9 inch

Mixed media object (medicinal seeds, earphones, memory cards, fabric, buttons, yarn), 8 x 27 inch.

“Seeded Dreamcatcher” is a craft object inspired by indigenous cultures. It symbolizes familial and ancestral traditions of holistic spiritual healing practices, it contains medicinal seeds and discarded and recycled materials to combine innovation with a survivalist attitude.

“Healing Altars” is a participatory project consisting of a series of installations that seeks to foster collective healing and action through individual engagement.

These socially engaged installations combine textile work, craft and written words. A wall text invites audiences to write their stories on textile stripes. These messages join together and are placed in the Healing Altar’s box as an act of solidarity and community story-telling.

The work activates the audiences in awareness, supporting them as they make their first step towards becoming agents of change.

Materials: Plywood, fabric, beads.

Each installation is 48” high x 24” wide x 10” deep.

“Nation For All” is a socially engaged wearable headdess created from fabrics salvaged from discarded clothes that the artist purchased as an immigrant in America. Justo invited other immigrants to write their experiences and aspirations for the future, which were placed in tiny bags and attached to the piece. The different fabrics used to create the work reflect the diverse ethnicities and heritages that exist in America. (Hunterdon Art Museum)

Fiber art

12 x 12 inch

Materials: discarded clothing

Fiber Art

12 x 12 inch

Materials: discarded clothing

Participatory community embroidery, made in collaboration with seniors.

40 x 40 inch

Poem by Pedro Pietri

2019, mixed media (paper, glass, wire, thread), 20” x 16”

2019, cut out paper, printed map, 24” x 20”

My work draws inspiration from my own indigenous and Italian heritage, exploring cultural identities through the lens of multiplicity and hybridization. The black-and-white symbols are influenced by the indigenous patterns I encountered during my childhood in Argentina. I incorporate paper cutting alongside an ancient Italian technique called quilling, which I use to represent my grandmother’s hair. These flowing, wavy patterns reflect my family’s history, shaped by migration and divided between two countries.

2019, cut out paper, printed map, 20” x 24”

2019, cut out paper, printed map, 24” x 20”

Socially engaged installation. Immigrants are invited to write about their hopes for the future. Their writings were included in small bags attached to the flag.

The flag was made from discarded clothing I bought and used during my time as an immigrant in America.

3’ x 5’

2021

Socially engaged installation. Immigrants were invited to write about their hopes for the future. Their writings were included in small bags attached to the flag.

The flag was made from discarded clothing I bought and used during my time as an immigrant in America.

3’ x 5’

On view in ”Art in Odd Places: NORMAL”, May 14-16 2021.

14 street between 6th and 7th Avenues, Manhattan, New York.

2019, installation, 84” x 14”

2020, work on paper, 20” x 24”

2019, mixed media (vintage photograph, thread), 16” x 24”

Mixed media (vintage photograph, embroidery), 20” x 16”, 2017

2019, photograph, 20” x 16”

2019, photograph, 24” x 16”

2019, mixed media (vintage photograph, thread), 20” x 16”

2019, mixed media (vintage photograph, thread), 20” x 16”

I combine digital technology, vintage photographs and embroidery to create mixed media works.

My work has both, a political and social context. 

I use vintage pictures because these images from the past come with a sense of history. They illustrate that the present struggles are a continuation of the past conflicts. 

I use my work to figure out what it means to be a Latin woman in America today.  

I couple photographs with art abstractions to create hybrid works that require collaboration with other disciplines.

The photographs I use were never intended to be seen as art, they were initially shot for purposes of surveillance or domination. 

According to historical archives, in the 1960s and 1970s a main focus of the NYPD was to spy on civil rights groups. The recent increase in protesters reminds me of those struggles.

I ignore the boundaries between then and now, art and document, figuration and abstraction. 

My digital edition prints are then finished with applications of embroidery.

2019, mixed media (vintage photograph, thread), 20” x 16”

Mixed media (photograph, embroidery)

2017

Mixed media (photograph, acrylic paint, recycled paper)

Dimensions 10 inch x 8 inch.

2017

Mixed media (photograph, acrylic paint, recycled paper).

Dimensions 10 inch x 8 inch.

2017

Mixed media (photograph, recycled paper, paint)

Dimensions 10 inch x 8 inch

2017

Mixed media (photograph, digital collage, paper, paint), 2018, 8” x 10”

My work is depicting the cover-up in the McDonald case. 
"The department stated at the outset that Mr. McDonald had been killed while approaching officers with a knife. But months later, a police video shows that the teenager was veering away from the officers, when one of them, Jason Van Dyke, shot him 16 times". 

Mixed media (photograph, recycled paper, acrylic paint), 2017, 8” x 10”

Several states have programs where prisons have contracts with private companies. These companies pay much less for prison labor than they would for free market labor.

For this forced labor, prisoners get paid little to nothing at all.

This is a situation of exploitation, where one person is enslaved for the benefit of another.

Private companies have pushed for a broader definition of crime. As a result there are more people imprisoned in America than ever before.

Many more people of color are incarcerated because law enforcement tend to target them. They are more likely to being searched and sent to prison than white people, and they tend to serve longer prison sentences.

Prison labor is the new American slavery and most of us support it without being aware of it, by buying products made by prisoners.

Every American should know about the existence of slavery.

The 13th Amendment banned slavery, but with one exception: penal servitude.

This punishment clause (from an Ordinance of 1787) was written in a language that was ambiguous enough to be abused, and it’s being used to legalize slavery.

It calls into question the value, dignity and equality of the 7 million Americans that have been incarcerated.

Breaking the law doesn’t make a person less of a human being and they should not be treated as if they were.

Mixed media (photograph, blades)

Dimensions 10 inch x 8 inch

2017