Star Feliz (b. 1992, Lenapehoking, New York, NY) is an artist and healer living and working on Tongva land (Los Angeles, CA). Feliz illuminates the processes of world-building as they braid back together the strands of life within their Afro-Taino lineage of the Caribbean and its diaspora that were so violently fragmented since the onset of European colonization. Working across media, their conceptual installations take the form of maps, songs, gestures, and talismans. Through the exploration of the twinned histories of humanity and the earth, a unique visual lexicon emerges that embraces the mundane and the unknowable as sacred. Often functioning as wayfinding tools, these interventions bring an inter-dimensional perspective to the forefront and make manifest the transcendent possibilities between the scientific, the intuitive, and the fantastical. Under the moniker of Priestusssy they create experimental devotional music with the earth through intimate narratives of transformation. 

Feliz’ artistic practice develops in tandem with their healing practice within movements for radical change. After more than ten years of intensive study and community practice, they currently steward their ancestral Indigenous knowledge-ways under the independently-run project of Botánica Cimarrón. Born of Afro-Taino traditions of the Caribbean, Botánica Cimarrón is a brand focused on healing marginalized people’s relationship to the earth through innovative tools and imaginative experiences that ensure the thriving futures of all living systems. In the past, they co-founded initiatives such as Abuela Taught me, an Afro-Taino Two-Spirit decolonial healing space; Homecoming, a QTBIPOC birth justice collective and Lenapehoking Herbalists Collective, an herbal mutual aid hub.

Feliz has performed and exhibited nationally and internationally including The Kitchen, New York, NY; The Oregon Contemporary, Portland, OR; The Horse Hospital, London, UK; The Latinx Project at NYU, New York, NY; Articule, Montreal, Quebec; and others. They have been awarded fellowships, residencies, and grants at ACRE, Steuben, WI; Summer Forum for Inquiry and Exchange, Kaneohe, HI; Mohn LAND Grant, Los Angeles, CA; Printed Matter Emerging Artist Publication Grant, New York, NY; International Center of Photography Community Fellowship, New York, NY. Their work is part of the collections at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture / NYPL, New York, NY; The Joan Flaschs’ Artist Book Collection, Chicago, IL; The Library at the International Center of Photography, New York, NY. They are currently an MFA candidate at UCLA’s department of Interdisciplinary Studio.

Vision

Cimarrón Earth is a place for healing the spirits of the land and people impacted by the carceral state. We are situating ourselves within an emerging land trust and eco-village in the mountains of Northern California. By bringing together practitioners with missions centered in healing justice, and providing fresh bounty and experiences from the land we steward, we’re fostering a sanctuary movement of people reuniting with the ancient healing wisdom of the earth.


Offerings

✦ Sacred Plant Ceremonies
✦ Land & Ancestral Healing Ceremonies
✦ Apprenticeships & Learning Programs
✦ Community Clinic, Birthing Space, & Library
✦ Rites of Passages for QTBIPOC Youth


Get Involved

It takes a village to raise steward a land. Even in the early stages of Cimarrón Earth there are many ways to become involved and support the work of healing justice in a myriad of ways. For example:

• Have access to land? You can gift your land deeds and property as reparations, or have a conversation with aging farmers in your area about their option to secure the stewardship of their lands into Afro-Indigenous hands.
• Do you have skills, opportunities, influence, or funds that you can leverage to support our projects? Our family of brands and projects are built to financially sustain the development of the emerging non-profit Cimarrón Earth.
• Are you an experienced community organizer, healer, or earth tender looking to cooperatively purchase acres and establish a land trust? Get in touch and let's talk.

To financially support to the project, send the note “cimarron earth” along with your contribution here or send me an email. Thank you for bringing to lifea place for expanding the heart and our ability to vision.