INFORMATION

The Latin American Student Society (LASS) is the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s student-led Latine affinity group. Through public programming, publishing, and interdisciplinary collaboration, LASS creates opportunities for Latine students to develop, present, and critically engage their artistic and scholarly practices within the context of an art institution. Its ongoing initiatives include BRIDGES, a student-centered lecture series that brings Latine students into dialogue around emerging work in art, writing, and research, and THE JOURNAL, an online literary publication featuring critical and creative writing by non-studio students, including poetry, reviews, ekphrasis, and memoir. Their events are open to people of all backgrounds and celebrate the rich diversity of Latine student artists and practitioners—highlighting students who bring innovative approaches to their professional practices.

001 / 004Daniel FernandezExecutive Board

Daniel Fernandez (b. 2005) is a visual artist whose work examines the private nature of agricultural practices and the significance, capabilities, and limitations of their documentation. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago (2026); the Virginia Wadsworth Wirtz Center, Chicago (2026); and SITE Galleries, Chicago (2026). His work and research has been discussed with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (2025), and Duke University, Durham (2025). He is the former assistant educator for the Napa Valley Farmworker Foundation. He lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.

002 / 004Poppy LunaExecutive Board

Poppy Luna is a curator pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a focus on Mexican art. Based in Los Angeles, she has specifically immersed myself within the business of the arts, with experience in entrepreneurship, fundraising, and arts administration. Her career is rooted in community-based practices that prioritize accessibility to the arts within the Latine community, especially for immigrants and those from inner-city barrios. After undergrad, she plans on continuing higher education while aiming to work within museums and galleries to establish inclusive platforms for emerging Latine artists.

003 / 004Mikayla GueveraExecutive Board

Mikayla Hernandez Guevara (they/ella) is an art historian, curator, and artist currently based in Chicago, IL. Born and raised in East Nashville, Tennessee, Mikayla graduated from Vanderbilt University with a BA in History of Art in 2022 focusing particularly in modernism, spirituality, and abstraction being used as tools for social and political change in post-revolutionary Mexico. Now as a graduate student of Art History and Arts Administration at SAIC, their interests have grown to focus on Chicana art, museum education for diverse audiences, and issues concerning Mexican diaspora and material explorations of borderland aesthetics. Building off of personal experiences around immigration and the US-Mexico border, their work and research aims to memorialize ephemeral traces of transnational movement and the fragile memories left behind. During their time at SAIC, they have held roles as Graduate Curatorial Assistant at SAIC Galleries, recently curating 'NEW WORK 2026' as well as serving as current Administration Director of SITE Galleries and Graduate Curatorial Assistant for INCUBATOR.

004 / 004Isabella Becantur Executive Board

Isabella Gomez Becantur (she/her) is a Colombian artist specializing primarily in watercolor and drawing. She will her BFA in Painting and Drawing in 2028 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

001 / 001Joshua RiosFaculty Advisor

Josh Rios (Associate Professor, Visual and Critical Studies) is an educator, media artist, and writer whose projects deal with the histories, archives, and futurities of Latinx subjectivity and US/Mexico relations as understood through the intersections of modernity, postmodernity, and neocoloniality. Josh’s projects highlight moments of intercultural contact and co-belonging. Recent performances and projects have been featured at the Art Institute of Chicago, Andrea Meislin Gallery (NYC), and the Stony Island Arts Bank (Chicago). Recent writing includes the essay, "A Possible Future Return to the Past," published in Somatechnics through Edinburgh University Press. Upcoming projects include an exhibition at the Autonomous University of Mexico State featuring the archive of science fiction and cyberpunk writer Ernest Hogan, the group exhibition Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts and a performance for the exhibition A Decolonial Atlas: Strategies in Contemporary Art of the Americas at Tufts University.