Abstract:

This keynote address examines the maintenance and collaborative work supporting photographic archives, including two complementary collections that have experienced recent resurgences. During the late twentieth century, photographers Diana Solís (b. 1956, Mexico) and Akito Tsuda (b. 1966, Japan) separately documented Latinx communities in the Chicago neighborhood of Pilsen. Both photographers’ materials were stored for decades before their parallel re-emergences via social media, books, and exhibitions beginning in the 2010s. In addition to their shared subject matter and contemporaneous resurfacings, Solís and Tsuda’s photographs show the care and labor upholding the circulation and custodianship of archives. Expanding beyond these specific collections, Ledezma asks how the resurgence of photographic archives can confront settler colonialism, spur political mobilization, and complicate reductive ideas of belonging and community.

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Speaker bio:

Deanna Ledezma is the Postdoctoral Research Associate for the Inter-University Program for Latino Research/UIC Mellon Program and a Lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She earned her Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Illinois Chicago and is completing her book manuscript Unsettled Archives: Kinships and Diasporas in Latinx Photography. Her previous essays have appeared in Art Journal, Photography & Culture, and the book Reworking Labor. Forthcoming publications include chapters in The Routledge Handbook of American Material Culture Studies and Feminist Visual Solidarities and Kinships. Complementing her research practice, Ledezma also collaborates with artists on creative projects. 

Website: www.deannaledezma.com

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Sponsors:

School of Art & Design Visitors Committee