Arts District Liberty Station has unveiled a new season of public art and exhibits along with
a fresh group of emerging artists.
“We’re so excited to welcome this new talent into our Art in Public Places programming
and look forward to continuing to activate our campus through artistic and cultural
moments,” said Arts District president and CEO Lisa Johnson. “These programs elevate San Diego’s creative landscape by providing crucial opportunities for emerging artists while offering our community engaging ways to connect deeper with art.”
The four new visual artists, who will begin six-month residencies this month in Barracks 14 are:
- Tina Mardan, an Iranian visual artist working across photography, painting, drawing and interdisciplinary art.
- Marisa Olson, a fiber artist whose quilts and tapestries use fabric, needle, and thread to explore themes of love, obsession, intimacy and vulnerability.
- Sheeva Davari, an interdisciplinary artist working in drawing, sculpture, and oil painting.
- Connie Leung, whose mythic, surrealist figurative paintings connect heritage and identity while inviting audiences to reflect on their inner emotional landscapes.
Arts District Liberty Station serves as a creative incubator providing multi-disciplinary artist
residencies, community-driven galleries and exhibits and public art installations. Together,
these programs support emerging and established artists in San Diego/Northern Baja with
a unique platform to create new work, while offering visitors interactive ways to connect
and experience art along with them.
The Art in Public Places (AiPP) initiative has these three main components:
- Installations at the Station, a program that commissions rotating, one-year outdoor art pieces by local and trans-border artists from the San Diego/Northern Baja region.
- The Emerging Artists Residency Program, which empowers early-career visual artists and contemporary dancers with free studio space, mentorship and public platforms.
- Gallery 201 Showcasing Resident Artists Presents Material is Process, from Aug. 21 to Jan. 25, 2027, as part of its Curator-in-Residence Program, this exhibition supports regional curators from the trans-border region who mentor emerging artists while shaping inclusive community programming.
Of the AiPP program, Gaby Quevedo, associate director of creative programs for Arts
District Liberty Station, noted that the district’s artist residency program offers its participants “a free space to inhabit and explore” their craft.
Speaking of the third, and newest component of the AiPP program, Quevedo said Arts
District’s Emerging Artists-in-Residence Program helps guide early-career visual and dance
artists.
“We pair regional curators up to work with our selected resident artists letting them help
curate and exhibit those artists’ work at an exhibition in a gallery space while they’re in
residency,” Quevedo said. “This is a very carefully driven and intentional component to
help mentor emerging artists, allowing them to develop and evaluate their work.”
The AiPP program is a celebration of trans-border art. “People who visit our campus come
from all walks of life, and through this program we’re able to let them see the activation of
art through artists’ murals and sculptures,” Quevedo said. “It’s an amazing way to
communicate.”
