Chicano Camera Culture maps out Chicano contributions to photography

“Chicano Camera Culture: A Photographic History, 1966–2026†is the first major survey of its kind. On view at the Riverside Art Museum's Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, the exhibition does not merely document—it explores the connection between Chicano photographers across the U.S. While you might not be able to get to California to see it in person, a new publication of the exhibition is your next best option.

Chicano Camera Culture: A Photographic History, 1966 to 2026 edited by Elizabeth Ferrer
Riverside Art Museum, hardcover, 200 pp., $50

The role of Chicano photographers remains unappreciated in American photography history, says curator Elizabeth Ferrer: “It's part of American photography.†While there has been a growing focus on Latine and Chicano arts within the past decade, she says, a great deal remains overlooked. 

“These voices are not integrated into these broader histories,†Ferrer says. She hopes this exhibition helps to do so. It begins in 1966, with the Chicano civil rights movement. “This show really maps out a history of Chicano participation in the medium of photography, and it's the first one to do so.â€

Ferrer views photography as a tool that has always given Chicano people agency, a trend that continues today. She points to the Chicano civil rights movement, where young, inexperienced photographers began documenting not just important local movements, but themselves. “If you go to this show, and if you're Chicano, you're going to see yourself over and over again. You're going to see your tía, your abuela, the kids that you see down the street. These photographs are emblematic and beautiful, and so many of them are about community,†she says.

While many may associate “Chicano†with the west coast or Texas, out of the 45 artists included here, five are either from or are based in the midwest: Chuy Benitez, Robert Buitrón, Martina Lopez, Daniel Ramos, and Diana Solís. According to Ferrer, “Chicanos are everywhere. Chicano artists are everywhere.â€

Chicano photography in the midwest

Ferrer believes Daniel Ramos's work is very emblematic of Chicago. She describes it as “this meditation on what it means for individuals and families to migrate, and what that does to your psyche, to the kind of the material world around you.†She continues, “Chicago has always been a center for Mexican migration, and that is the core of Daniel's work.â€

“During the exhibition opening, I really felt like all my family members in my photographs were going to step out of their frames and be with me,†Ramos says. “Their spirit was there. I felt it, and I saw the crowd feel it too.â€Â 

Diana Solís focuses on the cohesiveness of Mexican communities in Chicago. “I think she captures that,†Ferrer says, even though that's not fully represented in the show due to space. (Chicagoans will have the opportunity to see more of Solís's work soon, in a February 2027 solo exhibition at the National Museum of Mexican Art.)

When she thinks about the midwest, Solís says, “I always felt that photography in the midwest has been slow to catch up to the rest of the world, because the world hasn't really looked at the midwest.â€

Chicano photography is American photography

“Chicano photographers have had really impressive contributions as innovators, whether in terms of technical innovation or aesthetic innovation. And again, it's underrecognized,†Ferrer says.

She looks to Martina Lopez, whose work with digital technologies in photography in the mid-80s was “one of the first to really find truly creative means to use the digital media towards her own kind of expression.â€Â 

Then there's Robert Buitrón, who has a history of staging images and making performative work. “He kind of blows open the idea of photography needing to be kind of direct and pure. . . . He's creating stories out of photography,†Ferrer says. 

Chuy Benitez is known for his dedication to documenting everyday Mexican American communities in sweeping panoramas. He says the opening of the exhibition felt like a family reunion. “This [exhibition] is really representing a national community that has really kind of stayed together and supported each other very strongly,†he says.

Benitez believes every photographer in the show has battled the same question: “How do I actually represent my community the way I want to?†“The best thing about the exhibition is we all came up with actually very different answers. We [have] kind of similar cultural backgrounds, but our artistic styles and our representative styles are all over the place,†he says.

Solís appreciates the exhibition's deep interconnectedness, showcasing the depth of each photographer's life's work. “It is the ecology of people doing photography that are connected in more ways than one, not just because photography connects us because of our whole history as immigrants and in our particular places,†she says. “We're interconnected through history. We're interconnected through our love and our history in photography.â€