Biography

Katie Avila Loughmiller is an interdisciplinary social practice artist, writer, educator, curator and activist based in Milwaukee, WI. Avila Loughmiller received her undergraduate degree at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University and completed her Master of Fine Arts degree in the Public Practice program at Otis College of Art & Design. She has spent six years working in Milwaukee working at the intersection of community, arts and institutions. Form 2018-2019, Avila Loughmiller served as the Arts Project Coordinator for the Milwaukee Public Library overseeing the two year National Endowment for the Arts Our Town grant at the Mitchell Street Branch. She currently holds roles as the Storyteller & Content Creator at Colorful Connections, a diversity, equity and inclusion recruitment and retention firm; is a Lecturer in the Theatre Department at UWM; and is the Coordinating Producer of Out of the Picture, the first documentary film about art critics in the United States.

In 2017, Avila Loughmiller was a founding member of Heard Space, a multi-media performing arts collective led by women of color, and held roles as a writer, producer, director, editor and performer for 4 years. In 2020, she co-founded a grassroots organization, Milwaukee Action Intersection, that supported local activists and sparked the initiative, Amp the Vote, to increase public engagement around elections by sharing information on candidates, how to vote safely and also providing music and food at polling locations to help spur excitement and celebration around the act of voting. Also in 2017, she co-founded LUNA (Latinas Unidas en las Artes) a Latinx visual artist collective. In 2019 this collective turned into a for-profit business with the mission to support Latinx artists by creating new job opportunities and paying equitable wages. Avila Loughmiller now serves as the Director of this new business venture.

Her individual artistic practice has allowed her to perform across the country and also participate in artist residencies, most notably at Santa Fe Art Institute, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center and Wildacres Residency Program. For the last 5 years, Avila Loughmiller has been co-hosting a comedy radio show, We Heard We’re Funny, that airs bi-weekly on Milwaukee’s own Riverwest Radio.

Avila Loughmiller was the recipient of Milwaukee Magazine’s Unity Award in 2022, the City of Milwaukee’s Vel R. Phillips Trailblazer Award in 2021, named a Milwaukee Repertory Theatre’s SHEro in 2020 and her Op-Ed in Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service was awarded the Best Single Editorial, Statement of Editorial Position or Opinion for the 2019 Excellence in Journalism Awards by Milwaukee Press Club.

Artist Statement

My entire life has been a balancing act. I was born in one country and raised in another. I straddle between being included and consistently "othered." I have hungered for belonging while resisting the status quo. My work lives in the in-between as well. I dance between social sculpture and physical sculpture; performance and visual art. I find humor in the experiences that have made me feel awkward, confused or even pained. I don't choose a box to fit in for anyone else's comfort. I take an interdisciplinary approach to dissect, uncover and collage together my cultural complexity and female identity while deeply immersing myself in community and site specific work.

Through my work as a social practice artist, I dare to take up space and create while living in a society that strives to erase my culture and my roots and that pays me 46% less than my white male counterparts. I use storytelling and collaboration as tools to dismantle white supremacy and help create more inclusive and equitable spaces wherever I go.