Maryvale is getting its first-ever arts festival this Saturday, and it comes with a tribute woven through it: a traveling photography exhibition honoring Nick Oza, the longtime Arizona Republic photojournalist who died in 2021. The Maryvale Made Festival runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Desert West Community Center, 6501 W. Virginia Ave., and admission is free.
The festival celebrates local artists and other creatives from the neighborhood, according to KJZZ, with works by Maryvale artists on display alongside the Oza tribute exhibition. Nick Oza spent years as an Arizona Republic photojournalist before his death in 2021, and he was often pegged to cover longer-term projects about immigrant issues and people, per azcentral.com. He was a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who joined the Republic's photo staff in 2006.
A Fellow Journalist Keeps the Legacy Visible
Valeria Fernández, founder and executive director of Altavoz Lab, a Latino-led journalism organization, organized the exhibition featured at the festival, titled Be Seen, which brings Oza's photographs to canvases stretched across four large steel cube frames. Fernández worked with Oza on stories covering Arizona communities and issues including immigration, and she has said she wanted to restore his legacy in the community and make it public, and that she envisioned a community event making his archived photographs accessible to the public.
Oza died on Sept. 27, 2021, from injuries sustained in a car accident earlier that month, according to azluminaria.org. Fernández has said the exhibition brought artists, journalists and community members together to continue the kind of community work Oza was known for. She also created a fellowship in his honor, the Nick Oza Visual Fellowship, which azluminaria.org reports was aimed at photographers like Oza, who see the camera not only as a tool but as a bridge to connect with underrepresented communities. Gabriela Campos was the first recipient of that fellowship, per the same outlet.
Maryvale's Growing Push to Showcase Its Artists
Saturday's event marks the first time Maryvale has hosted an arts festival of its own, giving neighborhood creatives a dedicated showcase beyond scattered pop-ups. The neighborhood has seen other efforts to spotlight its artists recently: in December 2024, the Labor art collective hosted a free installation called El Mundo es un Barrio at the Maryvale Community Center, 4420 N. 51st Ave., featuring 10 stalls that showcased local artists alongside community resources, food vendors and musical performances, as reported by azcentral.com. Labor has described its purpose as being the bridge that shows the artistic capacity and potential of Maryvale.
Saturday's festival at Desert West Community Center offers Maryvale residents another free, local opportunity to see their neighbors' creative work firsthand while reflecting on the life of a photographer whose images were rooted in telling the stories of Arizona's immigrant communities.
