Artist Talk: Mercedes Dorame

Artist Mercedes Dorame, whose work is currently on view in the exhibition Kinship: Photography and Connection, uses photography to explore what she calls “the problematics of visibility” of First Peoples in the United States. Photographing places that hold mythical or cosmological importance for her Tongva community, she forges a dialogue with her ancestors and asserts the continuous presence of First Peoples and their stewardship of land and water. Join us in the Phyllis Wattis Theater for an evening with Dorame, who will be in conversation with Curator and Head of Photography, Erin O’Toole, in a talk co-hosted by SFMOMA and PhotoAlliance.

About the Artist

Mercedes Dorame, born in Los Angeles, California, received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and her undergraduate degree from UCLA. She calls on her Tongva ancestry to engage the problematics of (in)visibility and ideas of cultural construction. Dorame’s work is in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, LACMA, The Triton Museum, The Allen Memorial Art Museum, The de Saisset Museum, The Montblanc Foundation Collection, and The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum. She is currently visiting faculty at CalArts, and was recently honored by UCLA as part of the centennial initiative “UCLA: Our Stories Our Impact”, and was part of the Hammer Museum’s 2018 Made in LA exhibition.

Accessibility Information

Accessible seating is available at this event. Accessibility accommodations such as American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation and assisted listening devices are available upon request 10 business days in advance. Please email publicengagement@sfmoma.org, and we will do our best to fulfill your request.
 

Support for Public Programs and Artist Talks at SFMOMA is provided by the Phyllis C. Wattis Distinguished Lecture Series.

Major support for Kinship: Photography and Connection is provided by the Lisa Stone Pritzker Family Fund.

Generous support is provided by The Black Dog Private Foundation, Katie Hall and Tom Knutsen, Nion McEvoy and Leslie Berriman, and Kate and Wes Mitchell.

Additional support is provided by James C. Hormel and Michael P. Nguyen Endowment Fund and Christopher and Michele Meany.