POV Studio wants to help you express your creativity.
Javi Gonzalez and Loria Mendoza combined their many talents to form the collective with a purpose of helping people amplify their authentic voice. Through events and workshops, they aim to create a space to nurture the complexities of individual experience and community.
Javi and Loria shared what led them to form POV Studio in Issue 21 “Be Cause.” Oh, and did we mention that they designed the cover?
Loria Mendoza
I’ve always been interested in the vantage point that transgressing from a singular narrative to a collective one provides.
As a writer, I feel that combining text with other texts or art creates possibilities for otherwise competing voices to disengage from one singular, static “truth” about one point of view and come together to move beyond limitations that otherwise exist. As a person, I feel like I’m made up of complex elements that people see as competing with one another.
I’m a queer, non-binary, Latinx creator who’s been told at various points in my life that I wasn’t queer, non-binary, Latinx, or creative enough for my experience to be valid. But by sharing my art with others, my experience feels witnessed, and that in itself is incredibly humanizing. It’s a connection. There’s empathy involved, even love- it’s a transcendent experience, really.
When I recently started curating the Austin chapter of Red Light Lit reading series, which features writing, music, comedy, dance, and art centering on love, sexuality, and gender identity, I met so many people who wanted to have that transcendent experience, to make those connections, but didn’t know how to give themselves permission to pursue sharing their unique point of view through art.
That’s when Javi Glz and I came up with the idea for POV Studio ATX. We wanted to create a space where we could nurture the complexities of individual experience and community- not just for ourselves but for anyone who wanted space to do the same.
We want creatives in the Austin community to know that their experience is valid and there are so many ways to express it- and the more ways they can express it, all the better. We focus on helping people amplify their authentic voice, visibility, and representation through writing, photography, and performance art.
“We want creatives in the Austin community to know that their experience is valid and there are so many ways to express it.”
Ultimately we want to help people nurture their story and the modes in which they express it. It’s our duty as humans to help others feel more human and be seen as human.
Javi Glz
As an immigrant, community has been at the core of my experience.
From an early age I knew that my life as a Mexican immigrant to the US provided a different perspective. These differences can be isolating at times but also uplifting. I have found that embracing my identity and championing the unique qualities and perspective it gave me grounds me.
As an artist, I believe representation and visibility are very important and are values that I hold dearly. Through my photography, I strive to capture the life and stories of individuals authentic to their being.
In an effort to provide space for the community, I’ve created IGAustinTexas, a photography Instagram account that highlights the work of Austin photographers and hosts photowalks for this community. I’m also the co-founder of Latinx Creatives Meetup, a community org dedicated to championing Latinx creators in the Austin community.
I hope to continue providing a space for the community at POV through photography, workshops, gallery exhibitions, and events that support diverse members of the Austin creative community.
We welcomed our community to POV to share with them our most recent collaboration, “Cinco.” Cinco is a collection of prose and photography inspired by the connection and love Loria and I share for one another. We wanted to celebrate and let it be known that POV comes from and is a place of Love.
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