Art/Research Projects

Although I usually only engage with photography as a researcher, I recognized the importance of providing photo documentation during the historic spring of 2024 at Columbia University. I used my 35mm camera to photograph the occupation of Hamilton Hall/Hind’s Hall, the ensuing campus lockdown, and the nighttime intervention of the New York City riot police. Select images from the series were published in Public Books Magazine in 2024, available here.

As an archival researcher with an interest in public humanities, I am keenly aware of the barrier between higher education and public audiences. As such, I wanted to ensure my documentary images of the spring of 2024 at Columbia University would be made available for educational and historical purposes through the zine format. Using the risoprint studio at the Robert Blackburn Center in midtown, Manhattan, I produced a series of zines, two of which are now held at the Barnard College Zine Library, available here.

[images coming soon]

Blue Book was printed in April and May 2024 at Columbia University for Tomas Vu-Daniel’s Silkscreen course. Combining images from the art-historical canon with images of marginalized women artists, this book aims to challenge public acceptance of the canon. Using red and navy ink with varying transparencies printed on store-bought blue books (traditionally used for college exams), this series invites readers to reconsider how Art History is presented and perpetuated.

Created for documentary photographer João Pina’s 2024 graduate-level History course, Visualizing History, this photobook surveys the history of African-American portraiture during the U.S. Civil War. In researching and revisiting how marginalized bodies were represented–in calling cards, studio portraits, and stereographs– this book aims to serve as an educational tool for audiences interested in photographic media and the history of Black representation in the United States.

[images coming soon]

Printed in Tomas Vu-Daniel’s Silkscreen course at Columbia University in 2024, Laurita is an homage to my grandmother Laura. In using vibrant blues, greens, purples, and oranges, I wanted to emulate the joy she felt in her home island of Puerto Rico and, in doing so, revitalize stagnant images from our family archive.

[images coming soon]

This work-in-progress uses archival images from files at the Columbia University Rare Books and Manuscripts Library which document the clash between university students and college administrators in 1968 amidst Vietnam War protests and international solidarity movements.

As a Research Fellow for the Stavros Niarchos Public Humanities Initiative at Columbia University, I worked together with a team of other students and researchers to investigate how campus activists were organizing to combat the Greek military dictatorship in the 1960s and 70s. Our weeks of archival research culminated in a website and podcast, available below.

Created for Shelly Silver’s Videography course in 2023, this video collage draws inspiration from Glitch Feminism and the work of Arthur Jaffa. In layering open-source videos of ceremonies from public schools I attended in Covington, Louisiana, I wanted to showcase the far-reaching impact of U.S. imperialism, militarism, and American propaganda in small-town, U.S.A.