upcoming grant deadline: 05/15/2024
Ada Trillo (ACG ’18) is Leeway’s 2019-2020 Visual Artist-in-Residence at Fleisher Art Memorial.
Ada will create a photo documentary series of 20 portraits of people who have immigrated to South Philadelphia from Mexico and Central America. The portraits will be shot in black and white with 35mm film and developed and printed in Fleisher’s darkroom. This residency project is a continuation of the work she began with her Art and Change Grant project documenting people living in safe houses along the US/Mexico border on their migration journeys. For this residency, she will be expanding her portrait series into the immigrant communities of South Philadelphia.
As part of this residency, Ada will also facilitate three workshops at Fleisher on documentary photography and storytelling with the aim of providing a bilingual (Spanish-English) learning environment.
Ada’s photos document the cruelties and injustices of the failed immigration policies under the current administration, and also highlight the contributions that immigrants from South and Central America have made in the US. Ada hopes that her work continues to fuel conversations on immigrant justice through Fleisher, South Philadelphia, and beyond.