mariana Aq'ab'al moscoso

Artist in Residence

May 28

Written By mariana moscoso

Arrived 8 Q’anil - January 2026

Where do you call home and where do you live?

Tz’ikin Jay (Santiago Atitlán) and Vesnak (Sacramento, California)

Tell us about yourself.

mariana Aq’ab’al moscoso (ja’/elle/they) is a nonbinary reconnecting Indigenous queer of Achi (Maya), Nicānāhuac, and Afro-Indigenous roots living between Tz’ikin Jay, Iximuleuw (Guatemala) and Vesnak (Sacramento, CA). A cultural practitioner, narrative strategist, multidisciplinary artist, and emerging weaver, their work is rooted in Maya cosmology, ancestral knowledge, and practices of relational care. mariana is the founder of Ceiba Futures, a cultural strategy and creative incubation practice, and the steward of Casa Ceiba, an artist residency and gathering space in Santiago Atitlán dedicated to land-based creation, reciprocity, and Indigenous futurity. They are also the co-visionary of Toj + Tijax: The Ritual of Myth Making and currently serve as Senior Program Officer at California Humanities. Their writing and art appear in Terra:Soul, Crushing Colonialism Magazine, Mujeres de Maíz en Movimiento, SNAG Magazine, and Weaving Our Stories: Return to Belonging.

What are you bringing into your residency?

I am bringing the question of what it means to return — as someone who belongs to this land and is learning how to remember that. I am arriving with an emerging weaving practice, unfinished threads from Toj + Tijax, and a deep need to create in a place where the work does not have to justify itself. I am also bringing the tenderness and responsibility of being the first person to steward this space as a resident — holding Casa Ceiba from the inside for the first time.

What drew you to Casa Ceiba?

Casa Ceiba grew from a grief and a vision. When my father migrated from Guatemala, the ceiba tree on his land was cut down. That loss — of place, of rootedness, of what gets severed in diaspora — became the seed of this project. I built Casa Ceiba because I would have needed it. A place where diaspora artists can create in proximity to ancestral land, in relationship with local culture bearers, without extraction or performance. I am drawn here because this land has been calling, and this space is my answer.