Cielo Saucedo (1993, Whittier, CA) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She is an access worker and artist from a family of migrant farm workers. Their work encompasses writing, computer generated imagery, sculpture and machine vision. They received their BFA from School of the Art Institute, Chicago in 2020, and their MFA at UCLA in 2024. They were an Eyebeam Democracy Fellow (2024). They are a part of the artist collectives, PlaceHolder and Cripping_CG. Recent exhibitions of their work include presentations at Coaxial Art Center (2025), PlaceHolder Gallery (2025), The Armory, Pasadena for Getty PST (2024), Francios Ghebaly, Los Angeles (2024), BlankSpace, Pittsburgh (2023), New Image Gallery, Los Angeles (2023), Honor Fraser, Los Angeles (2024), MexiCali Biennale, The Cheech at the Riverside Museum (2023), Human Resources, Los Angeles (2022) Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago (2021) and Rudimiento, Quito (2021). They have given panels and lectures at NYU, UPenn, the Whitney Independent Study Program, Emily Carr University, Indiana State University, and the Sandburg Instituut among other institutions.

Lives and works in Los Angeles. CIELOSAUCEDO@PROTONMAIL.COM
short handled hoe! stand up straight and get to work! squat laborious girl, I pray for you!
Short handled hoe, artist’s cane, nylon rope from Don Fidel Saucedo, Silent Spring

Installed at Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery

The short-handled hoe, or el cortito was a surveillance device utilized in agricultural fields of the Southwest region of the United States. Introduced in California during the late 1800’s, their usage helped develop the state’s high yield mon-crop agribusiness. The short-handled hoe forces a farmworker to perform hard labor bent forward from the waist with their legs almost straight for the majority of their work day (up to 12 hours). Prolonged time in that posture leads to chronic pain, limb difference, spinal degeneration and permanent disabilities. The fields became deathworlds.

If workers were to straighten their backs, their change in posture would alert foramen of their pause in labor leading to putative action. To deal with this harm, workers move faster to justify a pause at the end of the crop row. Their speed increased productivity and profitability for the growers who own the fields while quickening the waste of the workers' health. This cycle ensures a constant turnaround of healthy new hires (mostly migrant workers from Mexico) that could be employed for even cheaper wages. These techniques of supervision, hard labor and waste made up what is now called stoop labor.

In 1975, the state of California banned the use of the short handled hoe. Since the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in 1938, farmworkers have been excluded from labor protections through agribusiness specific exemptions. Prior to its enactment, farm workers were generally Black and thus foreclosed from labor protection under the logics of chattel slavery. Because of this historic legal discrimination, the abolition of the short-handled hoe used an administrative ruling to California State code. It was ruled as an occupational hazard under the same jurisdiction as broken tools. In 2022 the Agricultural Workers' Rights Bill in Colorado, outlawed again the short handled hoe because of constituted use and recognizes this as a violation of a worker’s right to health.

Posture is an indication of health, mental state, physical difference and affect. Corrective and assistive devices, like canes, braces and chairs allow for postural care that relieve chronic pain, mitigate degeneration, and prolong life.
2023