About #YourTurn

Arielle Bob Willis

Born and raised in New York City and Suffern, NY, with pit stops in South Carolina and New Orleans, photographer Arielle Bobb-Willis has been using the camera for nearly a decade as a tool of empowerment. Battling with depression from an early age, Bobb-Willis found solace behind the lens and has developed a visual language that speaks to the complexities of life: the beautiful, the strange, belonging, isolation, and connection.

Inspired by masters like Jacob Lawrence, Max Ernst, and Clementine Hunter, Bobb-Willis applies a 'painterly' touch to her photography by documenting people in compromising and disjointed positions as a way to highlight these complexities. Toting the line between fashion and contemporary art, her use of bright vivid colors is therapeutic and speaks to a desire to claim power and joy in moments of sadness, confusion or confinement.

Her photographs are all captured in urban and rural cities, from the South to North, East to West.

Bobb-Willis travels throughout the US and abroad as a way of finding 'home' in any grassy knoll, or city sidewalk, reminding us to stay connected and grounded during life's transitional moments.

Arielle is currently based in Los Angeles.

Star Montoya

Star Montana is a photo-based artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She was born and raised in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles, which is predominantly Mexican American and serves as the backdrop to much of her work. Her work has recently been exhibited at Charlie James Gallery (2019, 2016); Residency Art Gallery (2018); LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes (2018); Occidental College (2017); The Mexican Center for Culture and Cinematic Arts at the Mexican Consulate General of Mexico (2017); The Main Museum (2017); Ballroom Marfa (2017); and Vincent Price Art Museum (2016). Montana will be an artist-in-residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in 2020. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Art from the University of Southern California, a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from the School of Visual Arts, and an Associate of Arts in Photography from East Los Angeles College.

Guadalupe Rosales

Guadalupe Rosales (b.1980, Los Angeles; lives and works in Los Angeles) is a multidisciplinary artist and educator best known for her community generated archival projects, “Veteranas and Rucas” and “Map Pointz,” found on social media. Rosales received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016. Recent solo exhibitions have been held at Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (2021); Dallas Museum of Art (2021); Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City (2020); Gordon Parks Foundation, NY (2019); and Aperture Foundation, NY (2018). Rosales has participated in group exhibitions at Whitney Museum of American Art, NY (2022); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2021); The Kitchen, NY (2019); and Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha (2017). Rosales is the recipient of the United States Artists Fellowship (2020), Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship (2019), and Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant (2019), and has been in residence at Denniston Hill, NY; PAOS/Museo Taller Jose Clemente, Guadalajara (2020); Main Museum, Los Angeles (2018); and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2017).

Rosales’ work is currently on view in Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet As It’s Kept until October 6, 2022.

Mengwen Cao

Mengwen Cao is a photographer, artist and educator. Born and raised in China, they are currently based in New York.

As a queer immigrant, they use care and tenderness to explore spaces between race, gender, and cultural identity. As a board member of Authority Collective, they are championing diverse narratives and perspectives in the media industry.

Their projects have been featured in publications like Aperture, The New York Times, NPR, Mashable, BUST, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, Sina, Tencent. They have participated in international exhibitions like Photoville, Jimei Arles, Lianzhou Foto Festival.

Mengwen graduated from the New Media Narratives and Documentary Practice program at the International Center of Photography. They received NLGJA’s Excellence in Photojournalism Award in 2019. They were recognized by The Lit List in 2018, PDN 30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch in 2019 and World Press Photo 6x6 Asia Talent in 2020.

Caitlin Chung

Caitlin Chung is a student photographer from Seoul, South Korea who is currently based in Medford, MA pursuing a BFA at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Her work focuses on the connections between contrasting ideologies and cultures. Her photographs articulate the beginning stages of her cultural shift and has, since the beginning of her studies, grown into a broader curiosity and desire to seek an understanding of culture beyond the boundaries of her own home and identity. 

Caitlin was named a 2020 Presidential Scholar of the Arts and has produced images that have won national recognition through organizations such as Scholastics Art and Writing Awards and the National YoungArts Foundation. She has been selected as a YoungArts 2020 Finalist in Photography, and has been invited to the 2020 YoungArts Week in Miami, Florida. Caitlin was also chosen as a highlighted student artist in the cit.i.zen.ship: reflection on rights Exhibition sponsored by United Photo Industries, For Freedoms, Photoville, and the NYU Tisch School of Arts. She has also spoken as a student panelist at the Photoville LA Educator’s Day student panel.

Tommy Kha

Tommy Kha (b. 1988, Memphis, Tennessee) received his Photography MFA from Yale University. He is the recipient of the Next Step Award, Foam Talent, Creator Labs Photo Fund, Jerome Hill Fellowship finalist, and the Hyères Photography Grand Prix, and a former artist-in-residence Light Work, the Camera Club of New York and most recently, a Celebrate the Studio resident at International Studios and Curatorial Program. He was named one of 47 artists in the inaugural Silver List in 2021.

 His work has been published in NYT, The New Yorker, Foam, Creative Review, Dazed, Interview, McSweeney’s, Hyperallergic, BUTT Magazine, Buzzfeed, Miranda July’s “We Think Alone,” and was the cover of Vice Magazine’s 2017 Photography Issue. He has collaborated with the Billboard Creative in Los Angeles, and exhibited at Nathalie Karg Gallery (NYC), Launch F18 (NYC), LMAKgallery (NYC), PS122 Gallery (NYC), Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art (NYC), Teen Party (NYC), Brooks Museum (Memphis), Blue Sky (Portland), Ogden Museum of Southern Art (LA), Yongkang Lu Art (Shanghai), Hyères Festival (France), and Unseen Festival (Amsterdam). 

 His first solo show occurred at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Oregon, which was followed by his New York solo debut at the Camera Club of New York in May 2019. He appeared in Laurie Simmons’ narrative feature, My Art. He currently teaches photography at the New School and at Yale University. He lives and works between New York City and Memphis.

Gabriela N. Baez

Gabriella N Baez is a documentary photographer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico covering the Caribbean. She focuses on documenting intimate subjects: her father's suicide post-Hurricane María, the archives of her exiled Cuban family, and the relationship between sexuality and depression. Her work is raw, intimate, and personal. She has been published in Reuters, Bloomberg, The New York Times, CNN, and The Nation.

With under a year of experience, she was awarded Student Photographer of the Year (2017) from the Association of Puerto Rican Photojournalists. Since then, she has participated in various fellowships, research programs, workshops, and exhibitions. In 2019 she was selected to participate in The New York Times Portfolio Review, The New York Times Student Journalism Institute, the Visura.co Mentorship/Residency in New York, the Program of Independent Studies of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico, 20Fotógrafos Atitlán, and the Women Photograph Mentorship Program.

In 2020 she became a Magnum Foundation Photography and Social Justice Fellow, an IWMF Howard G. Buffett Fund for Women Journalists Grantee, and a Women Photograph + Nikon Grantee.

William Camargo

William Camargo has held residencies at Project Art, the Chicago Artist Coalition, ACRE, and at LA Summer held at Otis School of Art and Design. He has also participated in the New York Times Portfolio Review,  NALAC's(National Association of Latino Arts & Culture) Leadership(2018), and Advocacy(2020) Institutes. He is a current member of Diversify Photo an initiative started to diversify the photography industry. He was awarded the Friedman Grant and J. Sonneman Photography Prize from CGU and has given lectures at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, Gallery 400(Chicago), University of San Diego,  Cal State Long Beach, the Claremont Colleges, USC Roski School of Art, Stanford(upcoming).

Additionally, his work has been shown at the Chicago Cultural Center, Loisaida Center(New York), the University of Indianapolis(IN), Mexican Cultural Center and Cinematic Arts(Los Angeles), Stevenson University(Baltimore), The Cooper Gallery of African and African American Arts at Harvard, Irvine Fine Arts Center, Los Angeles Municipal Gallery, Filter Photo(Chicago), among others.

Arlene Mejorado

Arlene Mejorado is a lens-based artist from Los Angeles, California interested in creative responses to the limitations of documentary practices. Mejorado is a 2019 Magnum Foundation Photography and Social Justice fellow and has worked on visual stories presented in the form of books, zines, and street installations. She has worked on photo assignments for an array of publications such as The California Sunday Magazine, The Intercept, Vogue, The Atlantic, Google, Vox, and more. In 2018 she co-published her first book, Femme Frontera, which received Lucie Foundation's Independent Photo Book award. In 2017, Mejorado co-created the iconic 'Defend Dignity' graphic with Shepard Fairey for the We The People Campaign. Mejorado holds a B.A. in Latin American studies from The University of Texas at Austin and is currently working on her M.F.A. in visual arts at the University of California in San Diego.

Joe Medina

Joe Medina received a photography BFA from Arizona State University and a photography MFA from the University of Illinois in Chicago. He has taught photography at the secondary and college level. He was raised in the border community of Somerton, Az and currently acts as the Visual Arts Department head and Photography teacher at Harvard-Westlake school in Los Angeles, CA.

Alexandra Pacheco Garcia

Alexandra Pacheco Garcia is an artist and educator living and working in Los Angeles, California. She received her BFA in photography from New York University and her Masters in Studio Art from the University of California, Irvine. Alexandra's exhibitions include a solo show at Angeles Gate Cultural Center and numerous group exhibitions including at the Torrance Art Museum, the Luckman Fine Art Gallery, Visitor Welcome Center Gallery and an online collaboration, 7x7.

Alice Proujansky

Alice Proujansky is a documentary photographer and writer covering women and labor: birth, work, motherhood and identity. She is now working on Hard Times are Fighting Times, a project about the legacy of radical activism in her family; photo essays about culturally-responsive maternal healthcare; and photography and visual literacy workshops. Alice has taught photography since 2002 and was the lead curriculum writer for On Sight, Aperture’s photography and visual literacy curriculum. Her first book, Go Photo! An Activity Book for Kids was published by Aperture in 2016.

Alice grew up in Greenfield, MA. She graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Department of Photography and Imaging and lives in Brooklyn with her husband, son and daughter.

Tema Stauffer

Tema Stauffer is a photographer whose work examines the social, economic, and cultural landscape of American spaces. Her work has been exhibited at Sasha Wolf Gallery, Daniel Cooney Fine Art Gallery, and Jen Bekman Gallery in New York, as well as galleries and institutions nationally and internationally including a survey of Contemporary U.S. Photography at the Houston Fotofest 2010 Biennial. She is an Assistant Professor of Photography at East Tennessee State University and has previously taught at Concordia University in Montreal, Ramapo College of New Jersey, College of Staten Island, School at ICP, William Paterson University, and Toxico Cultura in Mexico City. She was awarded an AOL 25 for 25 Grant for innovation in the arts in 2010 for her combined work as an artist, curator, and writer. She has contributed articles to PDNedu, American Photo Magazine, Ciel variable, Culturehall, and other publications. She is the recipient of the 2012 Women in Photography – LTI/Lightside Individual Project Grant and a 2014 CCNY Darkroom Residency for her documentary portrait series, Paterson, depicting residents of Paterson, New Jersey during the years following the economic crisis of 2008.  One of these portraits was a finalist for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2013 and was included in the competition exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery from 2013-14. 

Contact Us

Email: yourturnphoto@gmail.com

Phone: (310) 274-7281
Address: 700 N Faring Rd, Los Angeles, CA 90077