Hi friends. I’m Lauren. Bios are stuffy, restrictive performances of prestige. I’m not into it. So here’s my attempt at something different:

Lauren Garcia is a multidisciplinary creative producer, director, researcher, and cultural strategist. She creates films, live events, performances, rituals, curricula, installations, campaigns, and collective structures that explore power, embodiment, memory, and belonging.

I’m interested in what is happening beneath, around, and between the problem everyone can already see. I want to know where power sits, whose labor is hidden, what people actually need, and what could exist with a little more imagination. I’ve developed a process over time: diagnose the conditions, imagine an alternative, design the structure, gather the people and resources, and find the language that helps broaden the coalition.

Centering that process allows me to create across disciplines, and has left me with a very wide body of work. While I’m no stranger to wide bodies, I do find that they sometimes require explanation. I’ve made films, built gatherings, designed campaigns, curated artists, conducted research, written curricula, produced performances, organized local and national mutual-aid projects, and helped build institutions and collective structures. The medium changes. The impulse doesn’t.

A more formal pedigree, if you prefer: Lauren C. Garcia is the Executive and Artistic Director of Queer Cultural Center in San Francisco. She completed graduate work at Virginia Commonwealth University, was selected as a Praxis Fellow at the University of Virginia, and was a graduate affiliate at the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life. Her research has appeared in peer-reviewed journals and informed work presented before the U.S. Senate. Her writing has appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, and her research and editorial work contributed to projects in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and Harper’s Bazaar. She has also worked in music, film, and live event production, including projects with Shana Tucker, Little Brother, and BeMyFiasco.

My favorite thing to do is mobilize people to respond to a community need when institutions fail, and across my work, I aim for a world where we no longer have to.

I am always down to help you brainstorm, raise money, build a coalition, or play the piano while you sing. Drop a line to say hi, discuss an idea or make a request below.