Meet Allie Teixeira Riggs

We had the good fortune of connecting with Allie Teixeira Riggs and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Allie, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
I honestly can’t imagine myself doing anything else. I have wanted to be an artist in some form since I was a child, and I tried to do whatever I could to pursue that. I studied Fine Arts in undergrad, and then I got an MFA in Digital Arts and New Media from University of California, Santa Cruz, and how I’m pursuing a PhD in Digital Media at Georgia Tech. I knew that I didn’t want to start a solo artist career because I felt that I needed some stability, so I chose to work in User Experience Design for a few years before finally pursuing my PhD (which I’m currently working on). These days, I maintain my creative practice through my PhD Research pursuits in Digital Media, and I pay the bills by working freelance as an Experience Designer / Director.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
My work takes the form of creating tangible, interactive experiences and participatory engagements with queer historical artifacts. For instance, I have worked extensively with the Gender and Sexuality Collections at Georgia State to create physical experiences with archival ephemera that invite alternative understandings of queer archives. I have also worked with queer communities throughout Atlanta to host workshops where LGBTQIA+ people and allies can reflect on their connections to queer history while making their own archival ephemera, such as buttons and pins with embedded oral histories. I have also partnered with artists and researchers working at the intersection of queerness, disability and ecological landscapes to create works that speak to a plurality of bodies and environmental entanglements, culminated in an exhibition of Queer Data Ecologies at the Public Art Futures Lab. My work largely speaks to uncovering, understanding, and prompting tangible material engagements with place-based queer histories, specifically situated in Atlanta.
One of the things I am most passionate about is sharing stories of Atlanta’s queer history, bringing queer communities together to reflect on it, and sharing these reflections outwards in artistic works. Of course, some of the biggest challenges that we as queer people face are the forces of erasure (in legislation, from book banning, from censorship online and in curriculums), so I am determined to continue creating and sharing queer histories and contemporary stories in spite of this.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Honestly, I love all of Atlanta’s green spaces so much, so I would probably suggest Piedmont Park, Sweetwater Creek state park, Lullwater (near Emory), and Grant Park to start with. I also love the Northernmost section of the Beltline where there are a bunch of wildflowers, and of course my wife and I love the ATL Botanical Garden. I would also recommend taking a tour of some of ATL’s art scene– the Public Art Futures Lab Gallery (where I’ve shown work), The Bakery (where I’ve hosted workshops for my research in the past), ATL Contemporary, Whitespace Gallery, and the Carlos Museum at Emory. For food, I have to also shout out our favorite place in ATL, Little Bear. We also love Little Tart and Alon’s Bakery.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Yes! I would love to shout out the Gender and Sexuality Collections at Georgia State University, and in particular, Morna Gerrard, who sparked my deep interest in Atlanta’s queer history and archival research. I would not be where I am in my PhD, and I would not be doing the research I’m doing without Morna’s invaluable guidance.

Website: https://ariggs.net/

Instagram: @a.teixeira.riggs

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/atriggs/

Image Credits
Personal Photo Credit: Joshua Smith