Victor Payan is an award-winning writer, humorist, and interdisciplinary artist whose work promotes social justice, community empowerment, and tolerance through engaging and playful public performances that educate, enlighten, empower, and entertain. Through his “practical social practice,” Mr. Payan combines arts advocacy with performance strategies to engage civic leaders in policy change. He also founded LAFTA: The Latin American Free Thought Agreement, Mexistentialism and the Keep on Crossin' Project, a multifaceted manifesto on immigration and borders of mind, body and spirit. Together with Sandra "Pocha" Peña, he created Aztec Gold with Lou Chalibre, a series of irreverent transdisciplinary interventions that utilize the iconography of Mexican wrestling to create cathartic “counter-absurdity” campaigns that inspire catalytic change. Payan and Pocha are recipients of the 2019 Creative Capital award for their Dreamocracy in America project.
Victor is a recipient of the 2010 Idea Fund Grant, a Texas initiative funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and winner of the 2005 NALIP Latino Media Market. He was selected as the August 2009 City of San Antonio Artist of the Month.
As an artist, Victor’s work has been featured in exhibitions, screenings and performances at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Weatherspoon Museum in North Carolina, the Bihl House in San Antonio, Galeria de la Raza in San Francisco, the Centro Cultural de la Raza in San Diego, the Sweeney Art Gallery in Riverside, and exhibits in Mexico and Berlin.
His projects include “Keep on Crossin'” and “Aztec Gold with Lou Chalibre,” an award-winning cultural arts program hosted by a masked Mexican wrestler, with Sandra "Pocha" Peña. He has created artistic interventions to defuse and diffuse anti-immigrant tensions at public events in San Diego and Tucson, Arizona. He is a founding member of the Taco Shop Poets and creator of the web series For Realz Locas of East LA.
An accomplished arts administrator, Victor is Founding Director of Media Arts Santa Ana (MASA), Co-Founder of the OC Film Fiesta multicultural film festival. He served as Director of Programs for the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC) and as Co-Director of the CineFestival en San Antonio Latino film festival. He also served as Co-Chair of the Media Arts Committee for Luminaria, San Antonio’s citywide arts festival. He has served as Diversity Consultant for California Presenters and was Latino Audience Engagement Specialist for the Bowers Museum.
Mr. Payan’s experience organizing public events began in 1994 as Coordinator of the "Chicano Urban Experience in Contemporary Rock and Folk Music" series at the Centro Cultural de la Raza in San Diego. He was Coordinator for the City Heights International Village Celebration in San Diego and served as Music Coordinator for the Adams Avenue Street Fair.
His work in media includes serving as Associate Producer for the national PBS documentary series’ The U.S.-Mexican War: 1846-1848 and The Border. He has also created youth multimedia production programs in California and Texas
An award-winning-writer, his work has been published in The Independent, The OC Weekly, San Antonio Current, San Diego City Beat, the San Diego Union-Tribune, Pasadena Weekly, El Aviso and the inaugural City Works Press anthology Sunshine/Noir. His website is www.victorpayan.com.