Contemporary Women Photographers

Keiko Hiromi, Iaritza Menjivar & Alayna Pernel

Remote Meeting (See Instructions/Get Zoom Link Emailed)

In this joint meeting with the Boston Camera Club, three contemporary women photographers of color will each share her perspectives, processes, and Influences. Alayna Pernell, Iaritza Menjiver and Keiko Hiromi will each do a short presentation, then we will move to a lively panel discussion moderated by Boston Camera Club member Julie Berson.

The panel will touch on such topics as

• The creative process.

• How does gender and race affect what and how you photograph?

• How does history, memory and the present affect your work?

• How does the history of photography influence your work?

• Other questions from the audience.

Keiko Hiromi will share her work from various projects, both personal and commission work that includes Drag Queens of Jacques Cabaret in Boston, Portraits of Hibaku-Sha, Liberia during and after the Ebola endemic, Monadnock Street her neighborhood in Dorchester,  along with her approaches to photography, the stories of past and hopes for the future. As a Japanese photographer based in US, photography has been her way of understanding and connecting to the world around her. She hopes to keep photographing and staying authentic to her point of view.   She believes perspectives that are authentically translated into visual space are one of the fundamental ways to connect people via critical dialogues.

Iaritza Menjivar is a Somerville-based photographer whose work honors underrepresented people within her close communities. With visual storytelling, Iaritza shares an immigrant story through her family. "First Generation" is a long-term project about her family, who are immigrants from El Salvador and Guatemala. In these photographs, she shares the story of three generations— first generation immigrant, first generation American and second generation American. Her goal is to honor her family’s hard work and to prove the worth of their sacrifices. It is a privilege to be born into two different cultures, but an unbearable pressure to be the one to save her family in a world in which she is seen and treated as an outsider because of the color of her skin. Nevertheless, the loyalty and love they all have for each other is what will help them to move forward. Through this conversation, she wants to express gratitude and devotion to her family and community.

Alayna N. Pernell's practice considers the gravity of the mental wellbeing of Black people concerning the physical and metaphorical spaces they inhabit. She will share an overview of her practice, including her ongoing research concerning collections featuring Black women held at the Art Institute of Chicago.