Crossfade LAB is back on April 16th, 2026

in partnership with Viva Phx Music Festival!

Crossfade LAB is an event series that presents intimate conversations around art, identity, and social justice with some of the most thought-provoking Latinx and Latin American artists of our time. 

Since 2016, Crossfade Lab has presented the work of artists who crossfade–that is, artists who find the unexpected points of connection in our world and who animate political and cultural ideas in new and public ways.

Crossfade LAB takes its name from a DJing technique of crossing and merging two music tracks into one new “mixed” track. It uses the crossfade as a metaphor for a kind of social thinking that celebrates in-betweenness and mixing without erasing.

Crossfade LAB is moderated by 2016 MacArthur Fellow and cultural writer Josh Kun. 

Crossfade LAB is organized by CALA Alliance. Organizing curators for Crossfade LAB are, Stephanie Roman, Executive Director, 2025 NALAC Fellow and 2023 Aspen Fellow and Josh Kun, Professor and Chair in Cross-Cultural Communication, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California.

SUPPORTING CROSSFADE LAB
MEANS INVESTING IN :

SUPPORTING
LOCAL ARTISTS

STRENGTHEN CONNECTIONS
ACROSS COMMUNITIES

FOSTERING
SOCIAL COHESION

PROMOTING
INTERCULTURAL EXCHANGE

DONATE TO CROSSFADE

“Crossfading is not just about music but a new kind of social thinking and social action. Crossfading is about listening to the borders, the edges; crossfading is about refusing the myth that any of us are single inputs, refusing to believe the myth of closure.”

Josh Kun - Moderator

Josh Kun is co-founder and co-curator of CALA Crossfade Lab. His books include Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America, Songs in the Key of Los Angeles, The Tide Was Always High: The Music of Latin America in Los Angeles, and Double Vision: The Photography of George Rodriguez. As a curator of exhibitions and performances, he has worked with Getty, LA Opera, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Prospect New Orleans, Grammy Museum, Grand Performances, California African American Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Hammer Museum, Lincoln Center, among many others. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, a Berlin Prize, an American Book Award, and a Grammy nomination. He is Vice Provost for the Arts at USC and Professor of Communication in the USC Annenberg School.

Past Labs

  • Carlos Martiel and Xenia Rubinos

    November 2022

    The eleventh volume of Crossfade LAB featured a special meeting between Cuban-born, Mexico City and New York-based performance artist Carlos Martiel and New York-based Xenia Rubinos. Moderated by MacArthur Fellow and Crossfade LAB co-curator Josh Kun, the evening mixed emotionally charged performances that underscored the lived realities of Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color with soulful Caribbean-inspired jazz melodies. The fusion of sound and political image transported audiences across the dynamic geographies of the Americas, from Cuba to Puerto Rico, New York to Phoenix, underscoring the often-political realities that exist while traversing space and place as people of color.

  • Guadalupe Maravilla and Alex Anwandter

    March 2022

    The tenth volume of Crossfade LAB featured a special meeting between New York-based multidisciplinary artist Guadalupe Maravilla (U.S./El Salvador) and Grammy Award-nominated artist Alex Anwandter (Chile). Moderated by MacArthur Fellow and Crossfade LAB co-curator Kun, the evening blended meditative healing sound waves and sculptural installations with vibrant, emotionally charged electro-pop ballads and melodies. The fusion of sound and image moved audiences across the dynamic geographies of the Americas, from Chile to El Salvador, New York to Phoenix, underscoring the often-political realities that exist while traversing space and place.

  • Teresita Fernández and San Cha

    November 2021

    The ninth iteration of Crossfade LAB featured a special meeting between celebrated visual artist and MacArthur fellow Teresita Fernández and rising music and performance star San Cha. Moderated by author and Crossfade LAB co-curator Josh Kun, the evening experimented, agitated, and shimmered, blending installations and sculptures with cumbias and telenovelas—a mix of sound and image that transported audiences across geographies of the Americas, from Cuba to Jalisco, the Bay Area to Miami, New York to LA.

  • La Santa Cecilia and Dolores Dorantes

    October 2019

    The eighth edition of Crossfade LAB staged a special meeting between celebrated Grammy-winning Los Angeles band La Santa Cecilia, and Mexican poet, journalist, and writer Dolores Dorantes. Moderated by cultural writer and MacArthur Fellow Josh Kun, the evening followed words and music across the verses and line breaks of the Americas, from Olvera Street to Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, and from celebrations of love and family to the violence of war, separation, and disappearance.

  • Daniel Alarcón and Javiera Mena

    April 2019

    The seventh edition of Crossfade LAB staged an intimate dialogue between Chilean musician and recording artist Javiera Mena and Peruvian-American novelist and Radio Ambulante founder Daniel Alarcón. Moderated by Crossfade Lab co-curator and MacArthur Fellow Josh Kun, the evening moved across the U.S. and Latin America, mixing fiction with reporting, songs with stories, and podcasting with synth-pop.

  • Lido Pimienta and Carolina Caycedo

    October 2018

    The sixth edition of Crossfade LAB presented a conversation between Colombian Canadian musician Lido Pimienta and London-born, Los Angeles-based Colombian artist Carolina Caycedo. The evening featured participatory performances exploring themes central to both Pimienta’s and Caycedo’s work: land and rights, resistance and representation, and performance that challenges the work of power.

  • Carla Morrison and Natalie Diaz

    October 2017

    The fifth edition of Crossfade LAB featured acclaimed Arizona Mojave poet Natalie Diaz and two-time Latin Grammy award-winning Mexican songwriter and musician Carla Morrison. The event was an experimental mix of words and music, exploring the connections between desire and love, land and family, and traditions that bend, bear witness, and sometimes break.

  • Nao Bustamante and Helado Negro

    May 2017

    The fourth edition of Crossfade LAB staged an experimental encounter between the internationally-known multi-disciplinary artist Nao Bustamente and the acclaimed musician and recording artist Helado Negro. Calling on immigrant geographies that run from Mexico to Ecuador– and span California, South Florida, and Brooklyn in between– both artists have used performance, masquerade, and wit to re-imagine Latinx aesthetics, history, and politics.

  • Julieta Venegas and rafa esparza

    January 2017

    The third edition of Crossfade LAB presented an intimate conversation between Grammy award-winning Mexican musician Julieta Venegas and multidisciplinary Los Angeles artist rafa esparza. The evening explored themes that move across the work of both Venegas and esparza: love and land, memory and masks, and the many ways songs and art can help our bodies to make sense of, and survive, history.

  • Rita Indiana and Calexico

    October 2016

    The second edition of Crossfade LAB welcomed Dominican-born writer, composer, and performance artist Rita Indiana and the Tucson, Arizona-based band Calexico. Whether through music or literature, live performance or composition, the Caribbean or the U.S. Southwest, both artists have paid keen attention to issues of national tradition and the borders of identity, while delving into the roles of mythology, popular culture, and cultural heritage in how everyday people survive and thrive amidst precarious conditions.

  • Tania Candiani and Guillermo Galindo

    April 2016

    The first edition of Crossfade LAB featured Mexican visual artist Tania Candiani and experimental composer Guillermo Galindo discussed cutting-edge experiments in music, sculpture, electronic media, and their ideas about sonic borders. The event featured immersive performances by Galindo (from the Border Cantos Project) and the indigenous electro-acoustic collective Radio Healer (Phoenix).