Parsons Aperture Conversations: Martine Gutierrez and Nadiah Rivera Fellah on Indigenous Woman
Thursday, October 1st at 7PM

Online Event via Zoom
Please register here

Parsons School of Design at The New School, in collaboration with the Aperture Foundation, is pleased to present a conversation between photographer Martine Gutierrez and curator Nadiah Rivera Fellah. In Gutierrez’s 2018 project Indigenous Woman, she created a 124-page art publication, playing the roles of photographer, stylist, creative director, editor in chief, and featured model. Throughout its pages, Gutierrez transforms herself into a revolving roster of identities—in some spreads, wearing go-go boots; and in others, appearing in Indigenous textiles belonging to her Mayan grandmother. In this discussion, Gutierrez and Fellah will take an in-depth look at the project and navigating of contemporary Indigeneity.

In a series of public programs that accompany the fall issue of Aperture magazine, “Native America,” photographers, historians, and writers discuss the historical relationships between and new perspectives on photography and Native representation.

Martine Gutierrez (born in Berkeley, California, 1989) is an American visual and performance artist. She is known for creating works that interrogate the formation, expression, and perception of identity. Acting as subject and producer, the artist has created music videos, billboard campaigns, episodic films, live performances, and satirical advertisements that juxtapose the consumable with the genuine. Gutierrez’s most recent undertaking, Indigenous Woman, is a glossy magazine replete with beauty advertisements, fashion spreads, and a letter from the editor—all featuring Gutierrez herself as model, stylist, photographer, writer, and editor. Her artworks have been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide, including in the Central Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale.

Nadiah Rivera Fellah is a curator at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Previously, she served in various capacities at the Newark Museum in New Jersey, where she curated the celebrated exhibition Wendy Red Star: A Scratch on the Earth and served as the primary author and editor of the accompanying catalogue. Fellah specializes in Latin American and global contemporary art. Her other published works include “Graciela Iturbide’s Cholo/as Series: Images of Cross-Border Identities” in the journal History of Photography (2019), and “Mining ‘The Maniacs’” in Wendy Red Star: The Maniacs (2018). Fellah received her BA in art history at Oberlin College, Ohio; and in 2019, she completed a PhD at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.