Daniela Tinoco arrived in the Bay Area from the Puebla region of Mexico to develop her career as a furniture and interior designer. Four years later, however, she’s returning home with a master’s degree in fine art and celebrating inclusion in two shows in May in San Francisco: “Autonomous Zones,” her thesis exhibition at the San Francisco State University School of Art, and as an artist-in-residence at Recology Art Studios.
“I work a lot around narratives, questioning them and creating counter narratives, from different points of view,” Tinoco explained on a tour of her SFSU installation, which is on view through May 15. A mixture of collage, assemblage, film and music, the work interrogates the idea of the U.S. and Mexico as nation-states while shining a light on tradition and how that might create future possibilities for community and solidarity among landless people.
“My practice is grounded in vigilance, disruption and collective reclamation,” she says. “I use many different materials. I work with a lot of found objects,” she said, from clay to printed material like books and maps. “I also really like collaboration.”
Tinoco found herself a home away from home among the artists and poets living in San Francisco. She met her husband (a teacher, poet and playwright), when his play was staged at the experimental performance space, CounterPulse. And she met her Spanish-speaking community at the frequent poetry and performance offerings in the Mission District.
“My life wouldn’t be what it is today without Medicine for Nightmares,” she said, referring to the bookstore and gallery on 24th Street in the center of San Francisco’s Latino Cultural District.
For her SFSU MFA show, Tinoco invited the local women’s folk music group, Corazón de Cedro, to contribute reworked traditional Mexican and Arabic music.
“Folk music is oral history that passes on stories, but the most beautiful thing for me about folk music is how it’s not so attached to authorship; everyone can change it and adapt it,” says Tinoco. She explained the way Son Jorochos (songs with mixed origins from the Veracruz region of Mexico) and a well-known Arabic melody, became the composition “Ya Banat Poblanas.”
“Most of these songs are also written from the perspective of men and we used it as an opportunity to talk about women in the struggle, who work and make art. We put them together and rewrote the lyrics.” She also created a fold-up broadside on paper with printed lyrics and the story of the music.
In addition to filling the gallery with sound evocative of resilience and liberation, the music provides the score to “Tepalcate,” her short film celebrating “joyful rebellion” shaped in clay (“tepalcate” in Nahuatl).
“Where I’m from in Cholula, some people still speak Nahuatl. The beautiful thing is, even though most of the people speak Spanish, they will always say ‘tepalcate’ instead of ‘shred of clay.’ So it’s in a way a word that has resisted the Spanish and is connected to what people used to do in this place.” And still do: Ceramics are among the region’s handcrafts.
Noting her hometown’s “hippie vibe,” Cholua’s Universidad de las Américas has an international student presence; tourism, incited by Tlachihualtepetl, “the Great Pyramid of Cholula,” contributes to its diverse population.
“Everyone knows each other and all my family lives there, so you know, I feel connected,” she says.
Deeply inspired by Mexico’s indigenous communities, Tinoco, describing how she unpacks colonialist narratives in her work, says, “I’ve been researching communal traditions, resistant movements and autonomous struggles that challenge these imposed stories.” She calls the practice “reverse anthropology.”
“I’m always learning from the Zapatistas,” adds Tinoco, who is among organizers of Enero Zapatista Bay Area, an annual commemoration of solidarity with the people of Chiapas and their principles of collectivism over dominance and authority.
“It’s been great to be inspired by them in my work,” she says, gesturing toward a dollhouse built on a foundation of books, and a table with a broken leg, covered in red clay. Using collage, she repurposed children’s encyclopedia pages to tell the story from the indigenous perspective, instead of the conquerors’ tale.
“It’s cheaper to work with things that you find and I found these encyclopedias and books,” she says. In a nod to the Zapatista self-determination, she planted a stalk of corn in the broken leg.
During her time in the program sponsored by Recology, San Francisco’s waste management company, Tinoco scavenged from a “public reuse and recycling area” for books, paper goods and other items for her installation in the artists-in-residence exhibition, which is open to the public May 16-17 and May 20.
She was inspired by an idea shared by Recology staffer Mimi Cheung: a recipe book of Recology’s potluck favorites. With Cheung’s assistance, Tinoco persuaded others to participate by offering a cup of champurrado, her mother’s recipe for the warm corn-flour drink, spiced with chocolate and cinnamon.
“I like to have something that you can give away,” she says of the zines she makes for her exhibits. “It makes the work accessible, and everyone can have one to look at later.”
Printed on found paper, hand assembled and designed as a unique object, the collected recipes and handcrafted zines and books will remain in San Francisco after Tinoco moves back to Cholula this year with her husband.
“Maybe if things were different, we would take a little longer,” she says, referring to the current political climate and its hostilities toward immigrants, artists and freethinkers.
“The Zapatistas always remind people of the importance of learning something and then bringing it back home,” she said. “I really want to go back home because I really feel like I’ve grown and learned so much here and want to pass on all of these things and enrich my people back home.”
She hopes an exchange of art, ideas and friendship will endure across borders, despite the distance and current political challenges.
“We’ll see what happens in the future, if I stay in Cholula or if in a few years I go somewhere else,” says Tinoco. “But I do feel like I will stay connected here. The whole point of this work is to keep the dialogue growing.”
“Autonomous Zones,” with work by Lucia González Ippolito, Eleanor Scholz, Daniela Tinoco and Joey Toro, runs through May 15 in the Fine Arts Gallery, Room 238, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave., San Francisco. Tinoco appears in an artist talk at noon May 13; visit gallery/sfsu/edu.
Works from the 2025 Artist in Residence Program at Recology featuring Laurel Roth Hope, Josué Rojas, Eleanor Scholz, and Daniela Tinoco are on view from 5 to 8 p.m. May 16, noon to 3 p.m. May 17 and 5 to 7:30 p.m. May 20 at Recology Art Studios, 503 and 401 Tunnel Ave., San Francisco. Tinoco is slated to speak at 6 p.m. May 20 at 401 Tunnel Ave.; visit recology.com.
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