This article was written for Harvard University. Shorter version published on DiscoverAtlanta.com in English and Spanish.

Margarita in hand. Black combat boots stumping under a white lace skirt. A t-shirt shouting in block letters, “PA’L CARAJO ICE” (fuck ICE in Spanish), Patricia Hernandez moves through the Feliz Social Club festival like she owns it. Kissing some friends, hugging others and stopping here and there to bust a couple of salsa moves, this is a typical fun and networking Saturday for her. Every move, every laugh and every hug is threaded with her mission to amplify the voices of underrepresented artists who, like her, fight to be seen.

Just three miles from the festival, along Atlanta’s famous Peachtree Street, drivers are greeted by a bright mural of a girl swinging over sky-blue waters. Even though thousands commute through the highly trafficked street and view the art, Hernandez hasn’t always felt particularly seen.

An immigrant from El Salvador, Hernandez struggled for years to find platforms to showcase her art in Atlanta. So, she took matters into her own hands.

In 2019, she founded Nuestra Creación (Our Creation in Spanish), which began as a pop-up art exhibit and has since evolved into a platform for emerging and seasoned immigrant and minority creatives to share their art with the world at a gallery.

“I was feeling a lot of anger and frustration, asking myself, ‘Why not me? Why can't I be at that place or that other place?’” Hernandez said. “I had this dream to bring visibility in the metro Atlanta area to Latino artists like me.”

ever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Her vision comes at a time of significant demographic change.

In the city of Atlanta, the Latino population grew by 37% from 2010 to 2020, more than twice as quickly as the city’s population as a whole, according to the city’s Office of International & Immigrant Affairs. The Latino population in Metro Atlanta is estimated to be approximately 550,000 people, according to the 2020 U.S. Census data.

With such a large segment of the population being Latino, for Hernandez, it was important that the rest of the population took notice of their work. “It’s not just [art] for us. It’s for everyone,” she said.

To accomplish that, over the years, Hernandez has secured partnerships with galleries that reach a broad audience beyond Latinos, such as MINT Gallery and Old Rabbit Gallery.

In 2025, for the third year in a row, Echo Contemporary Arts is home to Nuestra Creación. “It’s a great opportunity for me to contribute to the art community and for them to be able to show their work,” said Jessica Helfrecht, owner of Echo Contemporary Arts.

The female-owned gallery focuses on exhibiting emerging to mid-career artists, and Helfrecht is very intentional about bringing diversity to the forefront. “I love to reflect our population, especially in Atlanta, so I have a very diverse roster of artists,” said Helfrecht. “I think white men have whitewashed so many things, so representation is important.”

Patricia Hernandéz and co-founder Diego Torres.

For those who visit the art galleries, representation is also in mind. “How do you create diverse art if you have everybody thinking the same, seeing things the same?” said Giannella Alvarez, an avid art collector who is originally from Venezuela and now lives in Atlanta. “You need to have different perspectives and life experiences to create different art and entice different interpretations, even if it is around the same theme.”

Her homes, in the United States and Barcelona, are full of paintings. Each from a different part of the world. Even though she does not intentionally start her search for art specifically from a demographic, she is attracted to what diverse voices have to say.

“We have a lot of African art. We have a lot of art from young artists who are starting and have a completely different point of view because their life experiences are different,” said Alvarez. “We have a lot of art from artists who have a very clear view of who they are and how they want to express things. Seeking that, we have acquired art that fully represents diversity.”

Andrew Wilson, Alvarez’s husband, is aware of the importance of being intentional about diversity in the arts as an art buyer. As a white man, he seeks opportunities to champion minorities in the space. “In an ideal universe, art would be judged for the art itself and the representation of the stories being revealed through it,” he said. “But, we don’t live in an ideal universe.”

For Hernandez, the thought of a non-ideal universe is always present as an immigrant, Latino artist. “For many of us, especially immigrants or first-generation kids, we grow up not seeing our narratives honored in museums, galleries or media,” she said. “The lack of representation can lead to a disconnect, even shame.”

To help overcome the issue nationwide, the American Alliance of Museums and the Latino Network of the American Alliance of Museums created Strategies for Engaging and Representing, a 63-page guide to help museums across the country learn how to include Latinos in their collections and exhibitions.

“While there are over 60 million Latinos in the U.S., there is still much work to be done to include and represent us in museums,” said the Latino Network Task Force in the introduction of the guide.

Museums have the potential to change communities and perspectives.

According to a study by the Urban Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, Latino representation in the visual arts empowers future generations, strengthens communities and advances cultural equity.

While organizations aim to target the issue at a national level, Hernandez set out to move the needle in her local community.

With few resources and relying on her invincible persistence, she calls, emails and networks to make a difference in Atlanta’s art scene. “I get my kids ready for school and the second I am back home, I switch hats from mom to artist, to organizer, to fundraiser, to whoever I need to be that day,” she said.

Hernandez’s grit comes from her experience immigrating from El Salvador to the U.S. 20 years ago, when she was 19 years old. “I was rebellious and suddenly navigating a collision of cultures,” she shares. “It felt like the end of the world and the beginning of a whole new planet.”

She quickly realized that the South had its own complex identity, even within the Latino community. “Learning to navigate all these different Latino cultures while trying to find myself was both magical and incredibly challenging,” said Hernandez. “It shaped me into the person and artist that I am today.”

Reflecting Hernandez’s experience, Nuestra Creación has fostered the nuances and diversity within the Latino community.

“We might all be Latinos and we might all live in Atlanta, but every story is so unique and the way we each look at art is also unique,” said Santi Saucedo, a sculptural artist from Mexico City who officially launched his art career in 2023, showcasing his Mexican-inspired ceramics at Nuestra Creación.

“Patty gave me my first opportunity to showcase. I got to meet a lot of artists, and it kind of blossomed from there,” said Saucedo about Hernandez, who has since exhibited and sold pieces all over the city. “It’s an incredible mix of people from different age groups and levels of experience. It sort of built up that confidence for me to put my pieces out there.”

One of those experienced artists Saucedo connected with is Alex Ferror, a Brazilian immigrant who fell in love with drawing at a very young age. In his 30s, his wife enrolled him in a spray painting class in São Paulo that sparked his interest. Before moving to the United States, he painted colorful murals depicting children in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas - impoverished neighborhoods. Hoping to bring joy to the streets, children became his artistic signature ever since.

“I really think that if there is one demographic that we choose to target to change this crappy world we are living in, it’s the kids,” Ferror said.

Those colorful paintings of children made their way to Atlanta in 2015 when he painted a mural in East Village featuring two smiling boys dressed as carpenters holding a hammer and handplane. The double-door-sized mural displayed in the parking lot of what used to be an eccentric furniture store is still there to this day. The walls around it have changed, and the neighborhood has evolved into an eclectic one, but the bright light blue of the mural remains vibrant.

Ferror left his mark in Atlanta for the first time then, and the local art world welcomed him with open arms. Around that time, he met Hernandez, and in 2023, Ferror’s painting, depicting a Black girl looking in the mirror while wearing a yellow hat in the shape of a pineapple, was displayed in Nuestra Creación’s exhibit.

Over the years, Ferror has watched Hernandez support and advocate for Latino creatives in Atlanta. “I feel she is one of the most relentless people I know, kicking doors or building her own pathway,” Ferror said. “She is creating community instead of competition. That takes a lot of strength and a lot of courage.”

Hernandez is determined not to stop anytime soon.

“It took us six years to save enough money to become a 501(c)(3) nonprofit,” she said. “And we have a lot more to do because we will continue to support other nonprofits in the community.”

Following the business model of many galleries, Nuestra Creación splits the profits from any art sold at the exhibit 60/40—but with a twist. The artist takes home 60% of the profit. Instead of the gallery retaining the other 40%, Nuestra Creación splits that profit with the host gallery or venue and a selected local nonprofit organization.

Throughout the years, Nuestra Creación has supported nonprofits such as Caminar Latino - Georgia’s first and only comprehensive domestic violence intervention program for Latino families - and El Refugio, an organization that offers support to detainees and their families at Stewart Detention Center.

This year, Nuestra Creación will share its profits with Freedom University, a local college that supports DACA recipients and immigrant students pursuing higher education.

Partnering with an organization offering services to the immigrant community was more important than ever for Hernandez this year, “because of the ongoing political and social challenges immigrants face, especially in the South,” she said. “We’re seeing a nonstop increase in fear, displacement and instability within our communities due to changing policies, legal threats, and a general climate of anti-immigrant sentiment.”

Each year, a single word shapes the theme of the exhibit. For 2025, Nuestra Creación - on view Sept. 5-28 at Echo Contemporary Arts - takes on Ojalá (Hopefully in Spanish), “a word carried through generations, holding the weight of hope, longing, resistance, possibility. [It’s] rooted in both prayer and protest,” said Hernandez.

Using art as a powerful way to reclaim space, Hernandez’s ultimate goal is to open a permanent gallery for Nuestra Creación in Atlanta, providing artists from all sorts of underrepresented communities a space to tell their stories, be seen and preserve their cultural identities.

“It’s not just about putting up murals or showing paintings,” said Hernandez. “It’s about community. Survival. Building platforms that remind our people that they are seen, supported and worthy.”

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