We're excited to share the short film, What The Hands Do, with our Santa Monica community, one week after the film's World Premiere at the Camden Film Festival.Â
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Acclaimed Director, Bing Liu, and climbers, Mariana Mendoza, Miguel Casar Ph.D., Carizma Brown and Luis Angel Fierros, will join us for a post screening Q&A and facilitate an engaging group activity: Another Climbing is Possible: Radical Imagination and the Possibilities of Climbing
Join Lagartijas, your local climbing organization, at the event to learn more about what’s going on in your area—and for a chance to win climb gear.
Check the @patagonia_climb Instagram channel for dates, locations and more details on each stop.
Please RSVP below!
Bing Liu is a China-born, Midwest-raised filmmaker best known for directing MINDING THE GAP, which was nominated for Best Feature Documentary at the 91st Academy Awards and won a Peabody. He was also a segment director on AMERICA TO ME, which premiered on Starz and was hailed as one of the best TV shows of the year. He co-directed ALL THESE SONS with Josh Altman, which won Best Cinematography at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and the Maysles Award at the Denver International Film Festival. He is currently developing several scripted and non-fiction projects
Born and raised in Mexico, currently living in the US, Mariana (she, ella, mariana) is a climber, organizer, narrative nerd, and popular educator. She comes from organizing with movements for carceral abolition, harm reduction, migrant justice, and the intersections of just transition. She is committed to using her labor, energy and love into building collective-determination, demanding justice, asserting our right to healing and care, and creating opportunities for imagination and cultural change. When she is not organizing, learning, or eating with loved ones, she is usually climbing rocks. Mariana started her climbing journey 15 years ago, building community, growing muscles, and finding a different form of somatic power.
Miguel Casar Ph. D. (he/him/el) is a Mexican activist scholar, climber, educator and professional dabbler in many things, including trampoline jumping and building legos.Â
In his movement work and scholarship, Miguel explores how research can honor the right of marginalized communities and those resisting oppression to ask critical questions about our realities, build power, and become protagonists of history as we imagine, author and cultivate just and humanizing futures.Â
Miguel stumbled upon climbing 18 years ago and since, has grown to believe in its profound transformative capacity, both individually and collectively.Â
Miguel believes that another world is possible, that it is up to us to collectively imagine and build such worlds, and that climbing can be a part of that movement.Â
Miguel currently serves as a professor at the University of Alabama.
Carizma Brown is a 26-year-old African American who grew up in South Central Los Angeles, a community heavily impacted by the war on drugs, gang and police violence, and historical and ongoing injustices. Directly impacted by many of these issues, Carizma was in an out of prison between the ages of 14 and 17. At 17, after getting out of juvenile hall, Carizma enrolled in a program to support youth impacted by incarceration. Since enrolling at the program, Carizma has graduated from high school and is in College studying business administration. In addition, Carizma currently works as a youth navigator at the Homeboy Art Academy. Carizma is also an artist, a deep thinker, a community healer, and when possible, spends time outdoors climbing and hiking. Carizma is also starting her own streetwear brand.
Luis Angel Fierros is a first generation Mexican American. Born and raised in South Los Angeles to immigrant parents from Jalisco and Zacatecas, Luis experienced the violence of a world structured to oppress him and his people since his early days. As a person impacted by the carceral and punitive geographies of Los Angeles since youth, Luis is committed to a future where youth are free and supported. Luis currently works as a youth navigator at Learning Works, an independent study high school for young people that have been pushed out or have left traditional schools.
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When Luis is not working, he is learning about the stars, black holes, and taking steps towards his dreams of becoming an astrophysicist.
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Luis recently began rock climbing a few years ago and he wishes to continue his passion for the outdoors.
We are a climbing crew created for people of the global majority (PGM) by the community. We currently meet at different climbing gyms and crags near Los Angeles.
Lagartijas, lizards in Spanish, are a widespread group of reptiles, with over 6,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica. They come in different shapes, sizes and colors and can be usually seen climbing rocks, walls or trees.
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Our Objective is to help close the gap in the outdoors for People of the Global Majority. We want to create new paths, increase accessibility of outdoor recreation, outdoor related education and spaces for PGM adults and youths.