Lorena Mostajo

Assistant Professor

mgomezmostajo@ucsd.edu

Websites

https://lorenamostajo.com
https://tallercalifornia.org

Biography

Lorena Mostajo is an artist whose photographic practice spans Mexico and the United States and Bolivia. Her current projects are centered on the ways in which vernacular and historical photographs, national imaginaries, global and local economies and tourism intersect. By looking at these relationships, she examines how images of tourism can simultaneously contain and displace commonly known histories of power relationships and ideas about national culture.

Mostajo’s practice also includes the production and dissemination of printed matter. She is the founder of Taller California (the word “taller” in Spanish means workshop,) a small press for artists, writers, and community members from the Tijuana-San Diego area. Taller California’s books are collaborative; the press fosters experimental ways of production and distribution.

Originally from Mexico City, Lorena Mostajo completed her MFA in photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her BA in Hispanic American Literature at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. In addition to her artistic practice, she has written about photography for the prestigious Mexican photo journal Luna Córnea as well as for different magazines and newspapers in Mexico. With Mara Fortes, she co-edited Inmemoria, a volume of essays about the French filmmaker Chris Marker and the first translation into Spanish of Amos Vogel’s Film As a Subversive Art, both published by Ambulante Documentary Film Festival (Mexico). Her artistic work has been included in several collective exhibitions in Mexico, the United States, and Germany.