In 2009, Mabel Valdiviezo (she/they), started work on an autobiographical documentary. Completed 15 years later in 2024, Mabel is now traveling to share the film and connect on a personal level with audiences about her experience returning home to Peru after years estranged from family as an undocumented immigrant in the United States. Mabel, our Fall 2022 grantee for The TRANSFORM Business Grant, recently showed their film at the University of Colorado – Boulder where I got to meet them for the first time.  This was special in itself as Mabel and I only connected virtually during their mentorship year with TRANSFORM. I also had not seen the film in its final form as it was still in postproduction in 2022-2023.

Hosted by Professor Gabrielle Cabrera, a cultural anthropologist who teaches a course on borders and migration, the room was filled for the showing of Prodigal Daughter / Hija Pródiga. The film centers around Mabel’s personal immigrant experience, combining family photos, her own art, animation, and intimate cinematography to explore transnational migration, gender equality, and mental health. Mabel combines showings of the film with interactive art workshops to support personal reflection and connection around the film’s themes. The film has received a number of awards since its completion, including Best Documentary at the 2025 Arizona International Film Festival, and Official Selection at multiple festivals, including the 2025 Chicago Latino Film Festiva, 2024 Virginial Film Festival, and 2024 CineFest Latino Boston. 

After the screening, Mabel shared more about the film. She’d hoped to include more archival photos of herself and her friends in the film, but said they couldn’t be found. Only a few people had cameras in the late 1980s/early 1990s. For Mabel, it was important to center their experience as subtes (the counterculture punk movement in Peru fighting against the country’s dictatorship) from their perspective. Using what she had or could get from friends still in Peru, she included photos along with graphic novel-style drawings depicting what was happening at the time and their resistance.

Mabel also talked to a question about what happens to people with the passage of time, sharing that in the past she had a greater split of personal identity and that in exploring her identity in many ways, she’s found that identity comes from a sense of belonging. They’ve felt “split” in the last and that in doing work to understand their “self” better that they’ve come closer to what connects identity and belonging. In many ways, deciding to return to Peru and documenting the experience over more than a decade was core to Mabel’s understanding of who she is as a person.

For information on how to bring Prodigal Daughter / Hija Pródiga to a class or group in your area, reach out to Mabel at mabel@haikufilms.org.

You can follow Mabel on Instagram at @prodigal.daughter.movie.

A connection with Jupe Javeta (they/them/theirs), our Spring 2022 recipient of The TRANSFORM Business Grant.

Jupe (they/them/theirs) is a photographer who celebrates their community and the people in it. As a local culture keeper, Jupe is deeply committed to documenting the day-to-day lives of Black folks in the Deep South and displaying the art intimately and locally so others in their community can immerse themselves in the beauty and complexities of the people and the area. A few months ago, Jupe curated a gallery of their art for the Inner Works Communities 2025 Community Change Gala in Albany, Georgia, where they are from, and I had an opportunity to connect with them recently about intentional art creation, anticapitalist influence on their work, and how they stay true to what they’re building.

The pieces Jupe shared in a collection titled heirlooms brought to life their story of life in Georgia’s Black Belt. “More than anything, it allowed me the space to begin to map the work I’ve been doing across the Black South and beyond, and to begin the work of knitting together a cohesive story of Blackness, Southernness, Ruralness, Spirit, Travel and the Divine through my lens and my situating,” Jupe shared on their Instagram.

heirlooms explores Blackness, Divinity, and the Spirituality. Jupe intertwines different expressions of faiths and natural elements in an exploration of how there are intersections within folks and through folks, and how we people are tied to their ancestors both in time and space. Through the exhibit, Jupe created opportunities to consider heirloom in the context of what is passed down through family history and heirloom in the context of growth, curating the plants you want to gather seeds from to replant in the future. Jupe’s images express a fluidity of time and space. “ I think about the passing down of heritages,” Jupe said, “heirlooms, as something that’s passed down, forward and backward. You’re passing it back to them (ancestors) as well to experience that freedom.”

panel 1: :return: asks “Who meets you? And which version?” forcing a conversation with self about how we show up in different realms and eras of our own lives.

When you reach panel 4: :texture::invocation:, nature enfolds you. At which spaces does the natural show you evidence of something greater?

At panel 7: ::baptism::seedling::, as you stand with the finale, the confrontation is with the times in life when we find ourselves anew. When we die and find recreation, rebirth, and rejuvenation. 

Set in a series of seven panels, Jupe’s work invites spiritual connection, reflection, joy, grief, grit, and all the things in the crevices in between those feelings

Over and over again, not merely in a linear fashion through the numbered panels, but again and again as you move in the forward and backwardness of lineage and the contextualization of heirlooms, heirlooms presents the depth, intimacy, and wonder of Albany through Blackness, heritage, community, nature, and spirituality.

I chatted with Jupe about what drives them as an artist and they ways in which they continue to center anticapitalist values in how they move through life and artistic creation. 

As an artist and photographer, how did you find the part of yourself that has helped you be truest to the work you want to create?

I will pack it up so quick on something that’s doesn’t feel true to who I am or what I’m about! Trying, failing, and trying again has introduced me to so many skills and observations that I feel much more confident discerning what is for me, because I definitively know what is not. And that wasn’t because I just always knew, it’s because I tried and failed.

I can say for certain 1. trying and failing, 2.grieving, 3. including myself in the process. There have been many jobs, trades, arts, and paths I’ve tried, and most importantly have had to let go. Even if it wasn’t about a particular photoshoot or arts collaboration, learning how to start down a new avenue, maybe not get what I thought I was going to get from it, and then start over down another path has made me less afraid in every aspect of my life. I will pack it up so quick on something that’s doesn’t feel true to who I am or what I’m about! Trying, failing, and trying again has introduced me to so many skills and observations that I feel much more confident discerning what is for me, because I definitively know what is not. And that wasn’t because I just always knew, it’s because I tried and failed.

Grief also has always been an important part of my process because I realized being able to grieve releases a lot of shame. There were a lot of personal failures or redirections I wouldn’t allow myself to grieve because I felt shame about them, and because I couldn’t grieve them, I couldn’t let go and it became a sort of cycle. Once I really allowed myself the space to grieve what I thought was my future, my role in community art, even my relationships and career trajectory, I came into a space of feeling really comfortable with where I am and more fluid about what I can do. I could finally admit what I wanted, and why it hurt so deeply to not have it. I would have never been able to do that with shame blocking my access to grief. Now I feel I’m able to return to certain projects or give them a metaphorical funeral and start something new, because I’m not holding on to an idea of myself or my work that needs to be let go of. 

What have you learned about yourself in how you show up as an artist?

Even individual failures are a part of my larger effort towards my work and my self.

Initially I thought I had to be a particular way to be considered an artist. And I thought I had to produce work a particular way in a particular time frame to be what I thought I was supposed to be. One of the most important lessons I hold dear, that I learned from Nora (one of our TRANSFORM Advisory Council members and Jupe’s Grantee Mentor) actually, was that in trying to figure out who I am or what I’m about, a reliable way to do that is to see what I’ve come back to and been consistent about over time. Instead of trying to embody this idea of an artist or my work in my head, I can look back over all my experiences and find the through line of what I’ve already been committed to. With that, even individual failures are a part of my larger effort towards my work and my self. It’s helped to know that being true to myself is not a one time thing but a course of actions over time that allow me to reveal my character to myself and others. I know what I care about by what I keep coming back to. And the journey of coming back to my work is a part of the work. I am a part of the work that I create, and my process is not separate nor a shame to that. My journey is necessary to the work and I do not honor all the things I’ve been through, my ancestors or community by deflecting and minimizing what I struggle with.

What’s been most important in maintaining your integrity in the creation and consumption of your work as an anticapitalist artist?

Just being aware of how capitalism and so many structural isms have impacted our ability to dream and create, I feel a deep obligation to create as a way to embody my full humanity.

I’m realizing there are many different ways to have a fulfilling life, but understanding what’s fulfilling to me is going to determine how I go about creating one. The freedom to create what I want, to honor my culture and ancestors, and to honor the personhood of the folks I work with are the most important considerations to me. Long term, I know regardless of my trajectory I will be grateful I acted with respect to those principles. And interrogating whether I am creating to be seen or is there something deeper and more personal that I’m responding to? I think just being aware of how capitalism and so many structural isms have impacted our ability to dream and create, I feel a deep obligation to create as a way to embody my full humanity. What I love about my art right now is that it is slower and very deliberate, and that is shaping the collaborations I have and also who enjoys the work we create together. The art carries the intention and pacing, and while it may be slower, the intentionality is undeniable and that is what matters most to me. 

Anything else you’d like to share about yourself as an artist?

I’m just happy to be here! Right now I’m expanding how I see what is my art – I’ve been doing more interviews, continuing to document queer stories from the Deep South, having discussions with other artists about Black Art in the South, and allowing more room to be present in my own work. Day by day, it surfaces more and more how we are all connected in our struggles for liberation and freedom, and I hope my work can be a part of that. Maybe not as the teeth, but as a salve. 

You can connect with Jupe on Instagram at @theblkrecluse and on their website. 

TL;DR: Our mentorship year is grantee-led & fully customized to the needs of each grant recipient. Each person/team gets an awesome mentor with expertise in their industry and/or areas of focus and connections with other folks to fill gaps where needed.

When we get to the “face-to-face” meeting process in each grant cycle, a lot of people want to know what the year of mentorship looks like. Which like, fair question. The answer? It depends!

We don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach to mentorship.

• There isn’t some standard curriculum we use to guide our grantees.
• Each grantee gets an experience tailored to what they need and where they’re looking to grow.
• We do our best to match grantees with a mentor who has experience in their industry and/or has knowledge in the areas where they want to grow.
• We view sharing connections & resources via mentorship as another form of wealth redistribution to go hand-in-hand with the funds grantees receive.

When folks apply for the grant, we ask about the areas they’re looking for support in over the next year. We ask that question to help us see where we might need to expand our grantee support network if we don’t already have someone who would be a good fit for that mentee’s areas of focus. If we’re bringing in someone new, we vibe-check any potential grantee mentor before we ask them to support someone. We wanna make sure each pairing is gonna be a good fit and that any potential mentors are values-aligned before we put folks together. And, so far, we’ve successfully found mentors for all our grantees and it’s been groovy.

Once a mentorship match has been made, from there it REALLY depends on where a grantee needs support.

• The mentorship year is grantee-led, so each grantee sets their focuses. Making the year grantee-led is one of the ways we challenge traditional power dynamics & capitalistic hierarchies.
• The mentor is there to help with support, knowledge-sharing, and making connections to others in the TRANSFORM who can support their assigned grantee with their goals.
• Mentors and grantees will decide on a meeting cadence that works for the grantee. Some mentor/grantee pairs will set a regular meeting cadence and others will meet as needed – as a grantee-led mentorship experience, it’s all up to the grantee.

Throughout the course of the mentorship, the mentor will help the grantee work through the focus areas they called out in their application. If there’s areas where the grantee wants to work through that the mentor doesn’t have the expertise to help with, we’ve got ‘em covered. We keep a roster of folks in our grantee support network who are willing to donate their time and skills to our grantees, free of charge. Any support a grant recipient receives during their mentorship year is always pro bono. You don’t have to be a business expert to be a great mentor or pro bono contributor, you just have to have knowledge & time to share with our grantees.

But ya know, a year’s a long time. What if something changes for our grantees over the course of their mentorship year? Literally nbd, not a problem at all. We know our grantees are dynamic humans with needs that shift and change, both personally and professionally. So the areas of focus for the mentorship absolutely can and will change to support them if needed. As we’ve already shared, this year is grantee-led, so if a grantee’s focus shifts, we shift with them. 

When the year of mentorship ends, we keep in touch with all past grantees and invite them to TRANSFORM community events. We also have a Discord community for all grantees, past and present to connect and run ideas by each other. Just because the year ends doesn’t mean the support comes to a stop.

And that’s it! If you’re interested in becoming a grantee mentor for future grant recipients or if you’re willing to donate your time as part of our grantee support network, learn how to get involved here.