Selina Morales

Selina Morales is an inheritor of a life sustaining tradition of Puerto Rican folk healing and spirit work. For four decades, she has studied at the knee of her grandmother, a spirit medium and healer. She offers her inheritance to her family and community as critical tools for the pursuit of social justice. Selina is a folklorist, a writer and a film maker. She is a founding partner of Botánica Pictures and is an Executive Producer for the award-winning short film, Daughter of the Sea (2022). 

Selina earned a B.A. in Anthropology at Oberlin College and an M.A. in Folklore at Indiana University-Bloomington. For nearly a decade, Selina worked through the Philadelphia Folklore Project, supporting artists in using their folk traditions for social change. She now consults nationally on projects that connect community aesthetics, heritage, and social justice. In 2017, Selina was honored as one of the Delaware Valley’s 50 Most Influential Latinos and is a member of the Advisory Council of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. For her writing and filmmaking about Puerto Rican folklore she has been the recipient of a Leeway Foundation Art and Social Change Award (2022), an Independence Public Media Foundation grant (2023), A Library of Congress Archie Green Fellowship (2023) and a Philadelphia Cultural Treasures Project Grant (2024).