About this episode

Michelle Arcila discusses the complexities of photographing family and personal history with host Michael Chovan-Dalton.

Photographer Michelle Arcila joined me at the JKC Gallery to discuss the process of making incredibly personal work that involves family and trauma and who that work might be for. We also talk about photographing your family, especially your children, and how to find the balance between exploring a painful narrative in the work while protecting those you are photographing from your past experiences. https://www.michellearcila.net https://www.instagram.com/michelle.arcila/ Michelle Arcila is a Costa Rican/American photographer living and working in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 2002 with a BFA in photography. Her work primarily focuses on family lore, motherhood, bicultural identity, and ancestral trauma. Her photographs have been exhibited and published both nationally and internationally; they also appear in a number of private collections. In 2012, after the birth of her first daughter, she took a hiatus from commercial work. During that time she was able to really start exploring how the work she was creating related to not only her experience of growing up in the United States as a first generation American; which came with the feeling of…

People in this episode

Host: Michael Chovan-Dalton

Guest: Michelle Arcila

Topics covered

• family photography
• personal narrative
• trauma
• bicultural identity
• motherhood

Keywords

• family lore
• ancestral trauma
• photography
• motherhood
• mental health

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: JKC Gallery, School of Visual Arts

Places: Brooklyn, New York

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