Tuesday, June 2, 2026 at 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM
18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica
**Intersection with Andres Cortes** Tuesday, June 2nd | 5PM - 7PM 18th Street Arts Center 1639 18th Street. Santa Monica, CA 90404 **Free + Open to the Public** These gatherings are dedicated to gathering our community around good food, conversation, and art. Please stop by for a bite and chat with our community and spotlight artist [Andres Cortes](https://18thstreet.org/artists/andres-cortesapril-may-2026/). Andrés Cortes — artist, community builder, and founder of ARVIA Projects in Northeast Los Angeles. Andrés is currently in residence at SOMA in Mexico City, and this gathering offers a window into that experience. Above a busy avenida in Colonia Roma Norte, Andrés has been sewing jergas — a textile deeply synonymous with Mexico City — over fierro maquetas, small steel and rebar prototypes for larger inhabitable installations he is developing for public spaces back home in Los Angeles. Throughout the residency, the sounds pouring in from the street below have become an unexpected companion — a shifting symphony of the city that has quietly shaped the rhythm of his work. These sounds have been captured in high definition using a field recorder, preserving the full texture of the city as it changes from day to night. For this Intersection, Andrés will share that recording — the sounds of his studio in CDMX playing in the room as we work together on a collective sewing and textile project. Come ready to make something with your hands, share in conversation, and settle into the kind of exchange that only happens when people are making together. Artist bio Andrés Cortes (b. 1985, Los Angeles) is a California-born Chicano artist of Mexican descent. He earned a BFA in Drawing and Painting, with a minor in Comparative World Literature from California State University, Long Beach. He has exhibited his works extensively in California. He is the founder of ARVIA Projects, an artist-run project and community based space for alternative forms of building, living through the creative lens, and mutual aide support efforts, which started in 2016. He is a teaching artist with the Department of Cultural Affairs of Los Angeles and has taught classes through Barnsdall Junior Arts Center, and the Watts Towers Campus. He currently resides and works in North East Los Angeles, CA. This residency was made possible by an artist residency partnership with 18th Street Arts Center through the Call to Dream: The Sam Francis Fellowship and SOMA.