Missy Arellano

Missy Arellano is a Cambridge-based community artivist whose work centers collage as a practice of healing, reflection, and civic imagination. Working primarily in analog collage and photography, she layers family archives, found imagery, and vintage ephemera to explore how Queer, disabled, and blended families and communities navigate belonging, grief, and joy.

Over the past two decades, Missy has moved fluidly between studio, street, and classroom—facilitating arts programming in museums and early childhood settings, collaborating on public art projects, and hosting community collage gatherings that invite participants to envision more just and playful futures. Her current work focuses on creative placemaking and inclusivity in public spaces, often emerging through partnerships with community arts organizations, schools, and universities.
 

Missy holds a BA in Art History and French (California State University, Long Beach), an MPA (University of Southern California), and an Ed.M. in Education Policy & Analysis, Arts & Learning (Harvard Graduate School of Education).