Preserving memory & empowering the Latina Diaspora with Diana Guerra

- Name, age, where are you from, what format you like using, what are you currently working on if you are?

Diana Guerra, 35. Originally from Lima, Peru, I’ve been based in New York since 2015. I primarily photograph and film using analog formats, either 35mm or 120mm for still images, and Super 8, regular 8mm or 16mm for moving images. I find it a little frustrating sometimes because you have to be a bit more cautious (besides the expensive price for film stock nowadays!), but I feel more attracted to its materiality and process.

I’m currently working with a group of women activists using photography and film to access, generate, and preserve memory. The project is collaborative and intends to strengthen our sense of community as immigrants and women of the Latine diaspora in New York City. We’ve shared our personal archives as a starting point to recreate some of the photographs, and produce other materials that are audiovisual, text-based, and even ephemeral. This is currently work in progress and can’t wait to share more with you soon!

- What about your surroundings/environments and upbringing interested you?

Growing up in a household where my parents came from different socio-economic and racial backgrounds made me question systems of power and view the status quo as a structure that can and must change.

I’ve always been drawn to the concept of the ‘other’, the ‘deviant’, to people who have a particular view of the world that doesn’t adjust to the structure and the expected. For me, this symbolizes a true connection to oneself and a fight against unjust systems of power.

- When was the first time you met photography? How did you feel when you met it?

I discovered photography through fashion and sociology. When I was in college, I became very interested in styles and would spend hours looking at street style websites and reading about Bourdieu and the judgement of taste. I wasn’t photographing at that time, but this influenced the way I used my camera.

Since the beginning, the camera has been a tool for research and connection, but different from how I approached a subject as a sociologist, the information or ‘truth’ that I intend to create and show with my work focuses on people’s subjectivities rather than their relationship with objective social phenomena. It’s been liberating, gentle, and has given me the opportunity to build a new language that can potentially reach a broader audience.

- Tell us about current projects you have been working on (could be any, or just work you have been doing in general). Is this story inspired out of personal reasons, or others? What are you most excited about in these projects?

I’ve been working on a few projects that involve photography and film, exploring themes of home, belonging, and the archive. The first is an ongoing project titled ‘Fleeting Under Light’ where I use my personal archive to dive into the ephemerality of memory and identity. To create these photographs, I use organic photographic emulsions that fade under the sun, such as Peruvian purple corn. The second project is a bit different since I don’t use archival materials per se in the works. I instead use my body and its movements as indexical traces for the creation of a new type of archive. Both projects demand thinking about time and our existence as a trace, particularly for those in the diaspora who have experienced significant shifts in place due to migration.

I’m most excited about embracing change with these projects. When working with archives, there can be a deep connection to the past and to the idea of a “pure origin” that needs to be preserved. I believe this perspective is dangerous, considering the harm essentialism has caused. Additionally, there is a long history of brown and black bodies being photographed and archived without consent or agency, building a historical narrative that has served to dominate. In contrast, my work focuses on the present and the power of brown people in the diaspora to define who we are and how we want to be portrayed.

- How did you find your visual literacy? Why are you attracted to certain images more than others?

I’ve learned to read images by studying the work of other artists. By ‘artists’, I mean not only photographers, but professionals who work in other disciplines as well. Something particular about my photography and the way I read images is that I consider the process maybe a bit too much. I’m personally attracted to ghostly, pixelated, blurred images—images that show certain resistance to being read. And I think it’s because I believe this is where their magic resides.

- Imagine meeting someone who is picking up a camera for the first time. What do you tell them?

Photograph without worrying about rules of formality—at least at first! Give it a try. Take some time to experience photography freely, without feeling the need of structure in your frame. But please learn about this after, and gently incorporate it in your work by including it or breaking it, or perhaps, the best option: by creating your own rules. You still need to be aware that photography is a language, and as a language, it is meant to be shared with others, so even if you are comfortable breaking the rules and creating your own, the purpose of artistic work is to express and connect. You can’t do photography if you are the only one understanding the work.