Alinka Echeverría (born 1981) is a Mexican-British visual anthropologist, artist, filmmaker, and broadcaster. She is best known for her work, ''The Road to Tepeyac'', which won the HSBC Prix Pour La Photographie in France in 2011 and has since been exhibited over 33 times.

Early life and education

Alinka Echeverría was born in 1981 in

Mexico City, Mexico Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley of Mex ...

. She was trained as an anthropologist and earned her master's degree in Social Anthropology from

the University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 1582 ...

in 2004, with an exchange year at the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna ( it, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, UNIBO) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (''studiorum''), it is the oldest university in continuo ...

in Italy. Echeverría then worked on HIV prevention NGO projects in East Africa for several years. She studied photography at the

International Center for Photography The International Center of Photography (ICP), at 79 Essex Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, consists of a museum for photography and visual culture and a school offering an array of educational courses and programming. ...

in New York and graduated with a postgraduate degree in 2008. From 2010-2011, she was artist-in-residence at L'École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles, France.

Life and work

In an interview with Kate Tiernan, she recognized that the migration of her family to northern England has had an impact on her works regarding themes of separation and union in relation to social and political struggles. Echeverría hosted a BBC documentary ''The Art that Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers'' in 2017.

''The Road to Tepeyac'' (2010)

''The Road to Tepeyac'' depicts portraits of Mexican Catholic pilgrims from their back, who were on their way to the church of the Virgin of Guadalupe. This series of work, in Echeverría's words, is a "photographic typology." Through the icons of the Virgin of Guadalupe that was carried on the back of the pilgrims, the artist aimed to observe the visual representations of the Virgin of Guadalupe in contemporary Mexico.

''Becoming South Sudan'' (2011)

This portrait series sought to capture the gazes of individual South Sudanese at the time of the independence of

South Sudan South Sudan (; din, Paguot Thudän), officially the Republic of South Sudan ( din, Paankɔc Cuëny Thudän), is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the C ...

, following decades of war, in 2011. Exploring the becoming and self-determination of individual South Sudanese, this portrait series addresses the powerful representation of these individuals. Echeverría was also interested in investigating the meaning of South Sudan becoming an independent nation for its unification of sixty-nine tribes at the time. She sees this series of works as a collaborative project, in which South Sudanese teenagers would stand in front of her camera and she would expose them to the world. Being photographed a few weeks before the independence of South Sudan, this project captures various South Sudanese across social classes, including refugees to police forces. Echeverría was also interested in the birth of a nation and its transformation from social anomy to civil society, as well as the creation of state institutions.

''Nicephora'' (2015–present)

In 2015, She started the research-based project ''Nicephora'' during the BMW photographer-in-residency at the musée Nicéphore Niépce. This project incorporates various media including collage, sculpture, three-dimensional rendering, sound installation, photography etc. In this project, Echeverría sought to deconstruct how the representations of women have long been constructed by the male gaze in male-dominated practices of early photography. This project stemmed from the photographic archives of Nicéphore Niépce Museum in France, a museum that centers the photography of Nicéphore Niépce, who was the inventor of photography. Echeverría's interest lies in the origins of photography as a medium and Nicéphore Nièpce's obsession with infinitely reproducible images. She appropriated and feminized the photographer's name symbolically as the title of this project. Echeverría's intention was thus to problematize the colonial and male gaze and practices of capturing, reproducing and disseminating images of females in French North Africa at the time. She views such practices to be inherent in photography since the invention of the medium. She scanned approximately four hundred images from the archive, particularly images of females. This project is also Echeverría's exploration of her Latin feminine contemporary perspective. To Echeverría, this project is a fieldwork, in which the field is the basement of the museum. As an anthropologist and photographic artist, she interrogates and deconstructs how these images ungird colonial and male gaze, seeking a contemporary overturn of these inherently biased practices. The other research objective of this project is to investigate how viewers are conditioned to read these images and how photographers are conditioned to construct them. While the practice of othering females remains to be the code of seeing until this day, Echeverría reframed and rendered these images using techniques such as collage to scrutinize how the purpose of these images can be changed, regarding their contexts and materiality. Nicephora was later exhibited in a solo exhibition titled ´Simulacra’ at the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts (MBAM,

Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA; french: Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, MBAM) is an art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest art museum in Canada by gallery space. The museum is located on the historic Golden Square ...

) in 2019.

Awards

* 2020: MAST Foundation overall exhibition prize for work 'Apparent Femininity', commissioned by the Foundation. The exhibition was curated the Urs Stahel. * 2019: Selected Grantee for the MAST Foundation Grant for Industry and Photography. * 2017–2020: nominee of Prix Elysée 2017–2020, The Musée de l'Elysée prize for supporting mid-career photography artists. * 2017: Selected Artist for the Foam Museum Talent Award. * 2016: Finalist in the Aesthetica Art Award. * 2016: Artist Commission for the Swiss Foundation for Photography. * 2015: Selected Artist-in-Residence for BMW Art & Culture. * 2015: Selected Nominee for the FT/OppenheimerFunds Emerging Voices Awards. * 2014: given an International Development Fund from the British Council/

Arts Council England Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three s ...

* 2014: Fellowship Award for the Kala Art Institute. * 2013: Nominee for the Foam Paul Huf Award. * 2013: Finalist in the Terry O’Neill Award. * 2013: selected as a Nominee for the Prix Pictet. * 2010–2013: UK Winner of the Magenta Foundation Flash Forward. * 2012: Echeverría was honoured under the

Lucie Awards The Lucie Awards is an annual event honoring achievements in photography, founded in 2003 by Hossein Farmani. The Lucie Awards is an annual gala ceremony presented by the Lucie Foundation (a 501 (c)3 non-profit charitable organization), honoring ...

Exhibitions

* 2020: ''Heroine'', Light Work, Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery This recent exhibition centers on her project ''Nicephora'' (2015–present). By naming the exhibition ''Heroine'', she intends to stress that the heroines of past, present and future are always the women as mothers, gatherers, community leaders, caregivers, inventors, artists and archaeologists. * 2019: ''Simulacra: Alinka Echeverría'',

Montréal Museum of Fine Arts The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA; french: Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, MBAM) is an art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest art museum in Canada by gallery space. The museum is located on the historic Golden Square ...

* 2018: Mexican Cultural Institute, Berlin * 2018: Preus Museum: National Museum of Photography, Norway * 2017: Mexican Cultural Institute, Paris, France * 2016: ''Becoming South Sudan'', The Ravestijn Gallery, Amsterdam * 2016: ''Nicephora'' R Espace BMW Art & Culture, Paris Photo Grand Palais * 2016: Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles, France * 2015: ''South Searching'', Gazelli Art House * 2015: Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa * 2015: Casa de Africa, Havana, Cuba * 2014: The California Museum of Photography, USA * 2012: Manezh Exhibition Hall, Moscow Photobiennale, Russia * 2012: French Institute of Latin America, Mexico City, Mexico * 2011: Maison de la Photographie, Lille, France * 2011: L’Arsenale, Metz, France * 2011: Bibliothèque Nationale de France François Mitterrand, Paris, France * 2008: International Center of Photography, New York, USA

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Echeverria, Alinka 1981 births Living people People from Mexico City 21st-century British artists British women artists Alumni of the University of Edinburgh