Memory Thread, 2020, Photo collage

Artist Arlene Campa’s mother immigrated to the United States from El Salvador as a child and Campa grew up in the San Gabriel Valley in the early 1990’s. Her family’s archive consists primarily of her old yearbook pictures, ID cards, and photo booth printouts, while the rest of the history has been recorded orally or lost with time. The artist adopted a documentarian’s lens to preserve the family lineage –with ID photos bearing the simultaneous weight of official documentation and declarations of joy, selfhood, and history.