ARMANDO ARIES GUTIERREZ

CO-FOUNDER

FROM: SAN YSIDRO
Website: despiteborders.cargo.site
Email: ag0304@berkeley.edu
: @despiteborders

Armando Aries Gutierrez is an enviromental scholar, storyteller and mutlimedia journalist. From their upbringing in the bustling border region in South Bay San Diego to their time in the East Bay studying environmental justice, they have a multitude of influences, experiences and disciplines to call upon. Similarly , their familial roots in the deserts of Sonora, MX and the lakes of Jalisco and Michoacan, MX , and queer- nonbinary identities influence their work and the variety of social justice oriented topics they tackle. Armando has a deep understanding of what crossnational culture, environmental injustice and anti-colonial efforts look like. They use their skills as a storyteller to uplift and highlight voices of the marginalized including the human and the nonhuman.

Armando aims at merging their innate creative voice with their passions and understandings of environmental efforts and knowledges of all types. Rooted in creativity, joy, change and connection, Armando uses their voice and platforms to collaborate, highlight underreported issues and challegen mainstream narratives that uphold capitalistic, imperialistic and legacies of colonial impacts. Simiarly, Armando is multi-disciplined making deep efforts in learning and collaborating global, Indigneious, and nontraditional approahces to challenging the status quo and collective healing.

They pursued their undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley, obtaining a B.S. in Conservation and Resource Studies with a focus in Environmentla Justice Communications , with minors in Ethnic Studies and Geography. Armando is passionate about decolonial approahces to environmental justice, interdisciplinary thought, multimedia art and creating community spaces for folk to explore and express their identities, passions and visions for the world. Whether that be in the form of air pollution research at the border, teaching queer ecological studies in classrooms or volunteering with river restoration and practice work, Armando uses their skills in hopes of creating radical and meaninful change for the most impacted communities.

Currently, Armando is working on a feature length documentary about the socio-ecological conditions of the San Ysidro-Tijuana Region. Through co-documenting the everyday expiernces of community members (of all levels, the human, landscapes and teh nonhuman), Armando aims to highlight the connection between the poetics of everyday resistance and the possibilities of dreaming a new RADICAL future.

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