In conversation with a young trailblazer: A timeline of Mafer Bencomo Arevalo’s activism at Ringling College of Art and Design
by Nosipho VilakaziMARCH 2023
Mafer Bencomo Arevalo’s photo sits at the Academic Center of the Ringling of Art and Design. She is this year’s Trustee Scholar Award recipient for the Visual Studies major. Beyond just an academic and creative maverick, Bencomo Arevalo is also one of the brains behind the Design Activism Hub exhibition that was just held on the campus’ Stulberg Gallery. Hailing all the way from Venezuela, she is on her way to becoming a global advocate for social justice. The trajectory of her life changed when she was offered the opportunity to finish high school in Japan on a full scholarship. Soon enough, she would find herself in the United States as a college student fighting for the rights of international students, advocating for climate justice, Venezuelans seeking humanitarian aid, and preserving the history and present-day of queer Venezuelans.
NV: You just finished your exhibition. Can you tell us more about how Design Activism Hub came about?
MBA: Back in my junior year, I took a business class called Project Management. During that class, our main project was to come up with a project idea and plan its implementation. I teamed up with two other students. We started off with an inquiry into what design activism is. This was after I had read about movements like design justice and design activism. Everything we researched, we put on our website and decided to make it public to Ringling students. Our goal for the class was to develop that website prototype and we were able to produce it as well as a brand guide. Towards the end of that journey, we also thought it would be nice to take the project further to find a way to ensure that the Ringling community and the larger community would be able to experience this topic further - beyond the digital world. We met with the campus galleries’ department head, Tim Jaeger and we committed ourselves to making an exhibition happen. Our plans began a year ago and we finally made it happen on January 2023.
NV: And from what I understand, this is not your first experience in the world of activism and social justice. How would you say you got started in the world of social justice and activism?
MBA: I don’t know if I can define myself fully as an activist. Of course, it so happens that I have been involved in projects that are related to trying to improve systematic issues in the communities that I have inhabited. Like most activists getting involved in these movements, I don’t think there is an option to not get involved. I could say that the most “activist” work I started off with was back in 2020. By law, F1 students - as in international students - are not able to live in the United States if they are taking a full load of online classes. In 2020, this meant that international students would not be able to stay in the US while Ringling was online. Some people were stuck here. So within Ringling, I wrote a letter to Tammy Walsh which got signatures from a large number of international students. I got interviewed in the local press about it with our president, Dr Larry Thompson and that let Ringling join in on the famous lawsuit started by MIT and Harvard against the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Ultimately, the law changed and international students were able to stay in the country.
NV: And you have also done climate justice work?
MBA: Yes. During my freshman and sophomore years, I was involved in organizing Earth Day. We organized swap shops where we encouraged students to exchange clothes on campus.
NV: In the context of your climate justice work, I remember you mentioned that you only began to get involved in it once you realized how it would affect you in your personal context…
MBA: In my childhood, I wasn’t raised to care about climate change. It was always a topic I wrongfully associated with privilege. This was until I realized that natural disasters have disproportionate effects on countries that have less resources than others. Being from Venezuela which is partly on the caribbean coast, I began to worry.
NV: Venezuela seems very dear to your heart. I know you have done some activism that speaks to that specifically.
MBA: Yes, during the summer between my sophomore and junior years, I got involved with Yakera. This organization was a non-profit that served as a crowdfunding platform for Venezuelans to create campaigns asking for humanitarian aid. We ran the project pilot and it funded a lot of campaigns - it was a very cool project to be part of.
NV: I am aware that recently you were the recipient of the Davis Projects for Peace grant and you will be starting a digital archive for queer Venezuelans in the summer. Where did the idea stem from?
MBA: I met a writer and a journalist in Miami - they are two queer Venezuelan individuals like myself. We were thinking it would be great to have an archive of testimonies that collects the stories of queer Venezuelans. This has great value in terms of queer movements in Venezuela being able to have primary sources to further their activism. We also want to have a centralized hub for queer Venezuelans who migrate to be able to seek asylum somewhere else and have this as evidence. Of course, this might take some years, but I believe this is a good starting point.
As Bencomo Arevalo sets her sights on Sao Paolo, Brazil after she graduates this summer, she plans to work within the Latin American scope, creating projects to help different communities in the best way she knows how. She has made her mark on Ringling College and will most certainly leave her mark within the community that embraces her next. As an activist, she remains a force to be reckoned with. Her zeal and adaptability serve as an indicator that for her, the future is bright.
photo by Nosipho Vilakazi (2022)