YoloSol Collective

About Us

Our Purpose

YoloSol cultivates place-based civic engagement and learning about issues of environmental and economic justice in Yolo County through storytelling, and creative nature-based and multimedia cultural activities. YoloSol brings together multimedia artists, cultural workers, and community organizers, who have decades of experience using digital and hands-on technologies and practices, to foster inclusive public participation. We believe that the arts are the best vehicles for fostering dialogue across difference, so that we can work together to build climate resilience and a just transition from the current fossil fuel economy to an equitable, inclusive and sustainable society.

YoloSol pays deep attention to the pasts, presents, and futures embedded in the landscapes and waterways of the Yolo bioregion, and centers the voices and stories of marginalized communities, especially Patwin-Wintun culture bearers, youth, and the diverse immigrant communities that make up the Yolo cultural tapestry.

YoloSol is supported in our work by grants from the Native American Studies Department (UC Davis), the UC Davis Environment and Climate Justice Hub, Arts and Cultural Affairs Fund (City of Davis), the city of Sacramento Office of Arts and Culture (OAC), the California Arts Council (CAC), and the Yolo Community Foundation (YCF).

Our Story

YoloSol came together during the pandemic as an intergenerational summer camp.

We shared stories of local activism and learned about the native cultures of the Yolo bioregion, which is nested in the Wintun homeland.

Some of these stories are troubled.

So we decided to use our creativity to heal our relationships with the place we call home.

We invite you to join us in creating a restorative future.

Team

Diana Almendariz

Diana Almendariz (YoloSol co-founder) is a culture-bearer, storyteller, and visual artist who has been working on the cultural and ecological revival and restoration of her Wintun homeland for over three decades. 

Learn more about Diana

Juliette Beck

Juliette Beck (YoloSol co-founder) is a lifelong community organizer, climate justice advocate and mother of two daughters born in Davis on Wintun homeland. She combines art and activism to bring awareness to the complex social, economic, and environmental issues of our time. 

Learn more about Juliette

Marlen Garcia

Marlen Garcia is an accomplished climate organizer/artivist who has led numerous successful media campaigns in her work as a youth and climate organizer for the Sunrise Movement, Earth Uprising International, Yolo Climate Emergency Coalition, etc.

azade Minasian

azade Minasian is a queer writer, artist and activist from California with an interest in Disability Justice, abolition, and Indigenous land relations. 

Anuj Vaidya

Anuj Vaidya (YoloSol Co-founder) is a media maker, curator, and educator, whose praxis engages a diverse range of forms and strategies that include theater and performance, multi-media installation and story-telling, social practice, curatorial practice, arts education, and artivism.

David Abramson

David Abramson brings extensive experience working on digital production for community-based organizations and social and environmental justice campaigns, with a strong focus on indigenous rights.

Christina Almendariz

Christina Almendariz is a Native Californian cultural practitioner of Maidu/Wintun/Hupa and Yurok heritage. A Montessori teacher and mother of six, she is passionate about nurturing the next generation of environmental stewards.

Ooti Maxine

Ooti Maxine is a cultural practitioner and a visual artist, who has grown up in her Maidu homeland in Sacramento. She has been working with tule since her childhood, and has been assisting Diana with workshops for over a decade.

Adelita Serena

Adelita Serena is a community artist and leader of Calpulli Tlayolotl  (Aztec) Dance Group, and a Yolo County Climate Commissioner. 

Funders

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