About us
Colectiva Cocuya is an intersectional feminist collective, based in Seattle-Olympia and rooted in Latinx communities, which seeks to visibilize and nourish the role of art in the work of social justice. Our name comes from the Taino word “Kokuio,” the name for bioluminescent fire beetles found across the Americas, from Florida to Chile. With two green spots on their backs, cocuyos shine brightest when they need to protect themselves, and migrate to find the right conditions for life. Though small, cocuyos are the most luminous creatures on Earth and are sometimes called “forest stars.”
Like the migratory cocuyos, our Collective has its roots in Latin America, shifting our name to Cocuya to center women’s and non-binary perspectives. We believe in art’s collective power to guide, keep memory, awaken consciousness, illuminate social problems, and provide respite and protection. With the goal of empowering marginalized communities, we facilitate participatory events that invite people to engage not as consumers but as producers of culture. Our events activate public space and non-traditional venues for artistic production while honoring modes of creative expression that are under-recognized as art. Through relationship-building and cross-community dialogues, we seek to strengthen local networks of Latinx artists in the Pacific Northwest while tending to our webs of connection across the Americas.
Meet the Cocuyas
“Los que guardamos la memoria somos como pequeñas luciérnagas”
“Those of us who keep memories are like little fireflies”
- Gloria Gaitán.
Alice Nelson
Alice A. Nelson teaches Latin American Cultural Studies and Spanish at the Evergreen State College. She is interested in the relationships between cultural production and social movements, particularly women’s and feminist movements, in the ongoing Chilean transition to democracy, as well as the roles of art and literature in collective memory projects in Chile and elsewhere in Latin America. She is the author of Political Bodies: Gender, History, and the Struggle for Narrative Power in Recent Chilean Literature, contributor to Accounting for Violence: Marketing Memory in Latin America, and translator, with Silvia Tandeciarz, of Nelly Richard’s Masculino/Femenino and La insubordinación de los signos, among other publications. She is a member of Pasajerxs Playback Theater group and an apprentice in psychodrama and socionomy as embodied liberatory practices.
Patricia Mazuela
A true muse within the artistic realm, Mazuela is a musician, playback theater director, and event developer in Washington State. She is a cofounder of the band Sin Fronteras and playback theater troupe Pasajeros. Mazuela hails originally from Chile, but migrated to the States due to family political circumstance in 1983. Her music primarily features the nueva canción genre, as well as traditional Latin American rhythms. She has collaborated with numerous other local artists and organizations in order to promote social justice, awareness, and cultural education. She is also a board member for Northwest Heritage Resources Organization. Mazuela’s gift is a means of connection with the audience by bringing together every artistic form and pushing the boundaries of what we know to be popular culture. Her passion for union within our community is most infectious, inspiring those around her to continue to create and learn to listen.
Catalina Ocampo
Catalina Ocampo is a poet and educator, born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. She teaches Latin American literature and Spanish language at the Evergreen State College, and is passionate about nurturing multilingual spaces and communities the ways in which art and writing can be used as a tool of memory and transformation. She is currently completing an MFA in poetry writing, and as a bilingual writer seeks to nurture multilingual spaces and communities.
Marce Soto Ramírez
Marce Soto Ramírez is a Chilean immigrant with a multidisciplinary background. They'rere based in Seattle and work as a graphic designer, artist, independent curator, Labor organizer, and union member at the Seattle Art Museum. This diversity of roles has shaped their unique perspective and enriched their work. Marce is the curator and director of the Chile Woke project, a venture dedicated to preserving Chile's visual identity. Their work is characterized by a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, using art to heal and amplify voices. Marce is also a community organizer in the first Union at the Seattle Art Museum, where they passionately advocate for labor improvements in the arts and culture field.