UW–Madison MFA student Christie Tirado is featured in a recent PBS Wisconsin video profile highlighting her work as an artist and researcher.
The six-minute segment focuses on Tirado’s interdisciplinary practice, which includes printmaking, handmade paper, and large-scale installations. Her work explores migration, memory, and family history, drawing from her experiences and cultural background.
In the video, Tirado reflects on her connection to printmaking: “Printmaking is very versatile. The process is very immersive. It’s very tactile.” She also discusses the medium’s broader cultural significance, noting, “Within Mexican culture, printmaking has that historical component. It’s tied to being able to amplify the voices socially and politically.”
Tirado also discusses how she connects process and theme through her work, particularly the concept of labor: “Labor is a theme in my work, from what I’m capturing in the stories that I’m telling but also the act of printing. Printmaking, in general, is very labor-intensive.”
Her installations expand on traditional printmaking by inviting viewers into an immersive narrative space. In an installation, she says, “you can immerse yourself in this narrative, in this story — you can walk through, and you can see all of the different movements that are happening.”
“You can just unpack the story as you’re walking by it — essentially, walk(ing) into a print.”
Tirado is graduating this spring and has accepted a teaching position at a university in Washington state.
Watch the full segment on PBS Wisconsin.