Join the Mulberry Street Library in welcoming photographer Alex Chavez, whose artwork will be on display from Wednesday, January 3, through Tuesday, February 27, in our Community Room on LL2.
From the artist’s bio: “Alex’s photography focuses on portraiture and street photography. Growing up in New York City allowed him to be inspired by other artists and the community. What is Latinidad? Is a portraiture project, but includes photos from the dense and diverse neighborhood of Jackson Heights and a Carnaval event, where Afro-Puerto Rican performers showed the Sarah Lawrence community the beauty of Bomba. The rest of the project would consist of portraits of various Latine students in Sarah Lawrence College, and those living in the communities of NYC, from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, Argentina, and so on. What inspired this series is Alex’s past academic work on the anthropology and psychology of immigration and the history of the Cuban Revolution. In these courses, Alex sought personal projects centering on how the history of someone’s culture shapes their identity. Such as Interviewing Latino folk who do not speak Spanish in a predominantly Spanish-speaking community and how that impacts their sense of self. As well as a project focusing on where racism and colorism took root in the history of the Dominican Republic. What is Latinidad? Aimed to expand these past projects on all fronts, but this time including a visual representation of Latino culture.”