Special Events

Join us for a panel discussion about The Place Where Clouds Are Formed, a collaborative project initiated in 2018 that explores the intersection of spirituality, migration, and historical policies affecting the Sonoran Desert borderlands. Moderated by poet Ofelia Zepeda (Tohono O’odham), panelists include artists Amber Lee Ortega (Hia Ced O’odham and Tohono O’odham), Su:k Chu:vak Fulwilder (Onk Akimel O'odham, Xalchidom Piipaash, Tlingit, Aleut, and Pomo), Monica Martínez, Gareth Smit, and Martín Zícari.

The fifth iteration of The Place Where Clouds Are Formed opens on April 6, 2024 as a single exhibition across two venues: the University of Arizona Poetry Center and the Center for Creative Photography’s Alice Chaiten Baker Interdisciplinary Gallery. It features photography created in partnership with traditional O’odham leaders and communities in Sonora, Mexico, and Southern Arizona, alongside poems in O’odham and English translated into Spanish.

Artist panel

10:00-11:30 a.m.

CCP Auditorium

Register today

Bios

Dr. Ofelia Zepeda is an O'odham poet and Regent's Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona, where she is also the director of the American Indian Language Development Institute. She is a founding collaborator of The Place Where Clouds are Formed.

Gareth Smit is a photographer and cinematographer based in New York City. Originally from South Africa, he is interested in collaborative approaches to documentary storytelling. He is a founding collaborator of The Place Where Clouds are Formed. 

Martín Zícari, Ph.D. is a writer, poet, and performance arts producer based in Brussels, Belgium. Originally from Argentina, his research deals with aesthetic representations of enforced disappearances in Mexico. He is a founding collaborator of The Place Where Clouds are Formed. 

Amber Lee Ortega is a member of the Tohono O'odham Nation and descendant of Hia-Ced O'odham. A spoken word poet and photographer, her work reflects efforts to reconnect with the lands sacred to Hia-Ced O'odham.

Su:k Chu:vak Fulwilder is Akimel O’odham, Xalchidom Piipaash, Tlingit, Aleut and Pomo from the Salt River Community. A poet, photographer and musician, she approaches art as a means of survival and visibility. 

Monica Martínez is a visual artist who uses photography, video, design, and installation to create conceptually based work focused on the hyper-normalization of violence in Northern Mexican society. Raised in the US-Mexico border area, she is also a photography educator.

Join us in celebration of The Place Where Clouds Are Formed, a visual art and poetry exhibition which examines the intersection of spirituality, migration, and current and historical policies that have impacted the borderlands of the Sonoran Desert. The special reading features poets Ofelia Zepeda, Amber Lee Ortega and Su:k Chu:vak Fulwilder. The event will be livestreamed here. 

We're grateful to be in collaboration with the University of Arizona Poetry Center on this project. 

We're grateful for support from the College of Humanities, Health Sciences Innovations in Healthy Aging, the W.A. Franke Honors College, and from supporters in the Poetry Center's Walt Whitman Circle for their underwriting support.  

Cost: Free

Speakers: 

Ofelia Zepeda

The Artists Collective–under the guidance of Nhan Ho, a second-year graduate student at University of Arizona’s School of Dance–will partner with CCP and the College of Fine Arts to present an experiential performance inspired by Wonders and Witness: Contemporary Photography from Korea.

The event has been postponed due to ongoing maintenance in the CCP Center Galleries. Please stay tuned for further updates and details.

Catch Beatlemania with John, Paul, George and Ringo at this fab sing-a-long screening of the 1964 rock ‘n’ roll musical, A Hard Day’s Night!  Sing-a-long to all the movie’s classic tunes, including “Can’t Buy Me Love,’ “I Should Have Known Better,” and “A Hard Day’s Night!” Rock out with pre-show Beatles Music Videos, and come dressed as your favorite Mop Top for our Beatles Costume Contest before the movie. You’ll love it, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Meet the Beatles! Just one month after they exploded onto the US scene with their Ed Sullivan appearance, John, Paul, George, and Ringo began working on a project that would bring their revolutionary talent to the big screen. A Hard Day’s Night, in which the bandmates play wily, exuberant versions of themselves, captured the astonishing moment when they officially became the singular, irreverent idols of their generation and changed music forever. This zany, tune-filled romp follows thirty-six hours in the lives of the Fab Four as they prepare for a big TV gig in London while looking for adventure, getting into trouble and trying to outrun hordes of their screaming fans!  Directed with raucous, anything-goes energy by Richard Lester and featuring a slew of classic pop anthems, including the title track, “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “I Should Have Known Better,” “Tell Me Why,” and “If I Fell,” A Hard Day’s Night, which reconceived the movie musical and paved the way for the modern music video, is one of the most deliriously entertaining (and sing-able!) movies of all time. (Dir. by Richard Lester, 1964, UK, 87 mins., Not Rated)

Reserve tickets here through The Loft Cinema's website.

Join us on Saturday, May 06, 2023, from 5PM to 7PM for the "¡Fiesta Fotográfica: El Pueblo Celebration!" at the El Pueblo Neighborhood Center Patio & Multipurpose Room. Centerpiece to the evening is an exhibition commemorating El Pueblo's past, present, and future through photography and storytelling. Join us for a reception featuring mariachi, hors d'oeuvres, aguas, and community tabling. Welcome remarks will be given at 5:45PM. Your rsvp is kindly requested, linked here.

About the Collaboration: El Pueblo Neighborhood Center is a hub for recreational and public services, neighborly exchange and community placekeeping in Tucson’s Southside. Located at the intersection of Irvington & Sixth, it is adjacent to the Laos Transit center and the Tucson Rodeo Grounds, houses such key Tucson Chicano cultural landmarks as the Frank De La Cruz Public Library and the headquarters of US Congressman Raúl Grijalva. Wrapped in murals and memory and traversed by families and public servants, the center is now the focus of efforts by multiple stakeholders in the city and private sector for revitalization and reinvestment. 

In the Spring of 2023,  UArizona students in Public and Applied Humanities (PAH) 200 “Introduction to Applied Humanities - the El Pueblo Urban Humanities Studio,” in partnership with the Sunnyside Foundation and the Center for Creative Photography (CCP) joined these efforts by visualizing the legacy and future of the site as part of their coursework with Dr. Jacqueline Barrios. Together with teaching partners and community storytellers, they deployed an urban humanist toolkit (case-study and archival research, site-visits, spatial ethnography, interviews and photography) to bring El Pueblo’s cultural, historical and speculative imaginaries into the public eye

A selection of the images from the El Pueblo photography and storytelling project will then be exhibited within CCP's current exhibition, Sessions on Creative Photography: Hazel Larsen Archer, through August 05, 2023. 

We would like to acknowledge funding for this project from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA);  the Marshall Foundation; the UArizona Experiential Learning Design Accelerator; UArizona Hispanic Serving Institute (HSI) Faculty Seed Grant, which supported sessions with Latinx digital humanist scholar and course artist-in-resident, Dr. Leigh-Anna Hidalgo; Arts|Humanities|Resilience Grant from UArizona College of Fine Arts (CFA) Research, Innovation & Impact (RII) and the Arizona Institute for Resilience (AIR), which is providing support for our newly inducted community documentarians and artists-in-residence, Luis Gonzalez and Jessica Wolff. We want to thank community and teaching partners, collaborators and storytellers from Sunnyside Foundation; the Office of Congressman Raúl Grijalva; Nuestras Raíces Pima County Public Library (PCPL) and Frank de la Cruz-El Pueblo Public Library; Raúl Council Member Lane Santa Cruz and Ward 1; Council Member Richard Fimbres and Ward 5; Supervisor Adelita S. Grijalva - Pima County Board of Supervisors, District 5; City of Tucson Parks and Recreation, UArizona, especially the College of Humanities (COH) and the Department of Public and Applied Humanities (PAH), College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture (CAPLA), Center for Creative Photography (CCP), UArizona Libraries Special Collections. 

None of this would be possible without members of our communities who participated in our Community Reinvestment Days, site visits, storytelling panels, community photo-shoots, workshops, pin-ups and reviews, who took the time to help us learn and share the story of El Pueblo. 

Community Storytellers: Jese Aguilar, Netza Aguirre, Richard Barker, Michael Barton, Cassandra Becerra, Martha Diaz, Vanessa Gallego, Mona Grijalva,  Congressman Raúl Grijalva, Sharayah ‘Shay’ Jimenez, Yolanda Herrera, Nancy Johnson, Beki Quintero, Ruben Reyes, Lupita Robles, Alfonso Romero, Anna Sanchez, Councilmember Lane Santa Cruz, Melissa Salazar, Jesse Soto, Brianna Velador,

Sunnyside Foundation Staff:  CEO Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Soltero, Director of Operations, Veronica Cruz-Mercado, Education & Community Manager, Karla Toledo, Administrative Coordinator, Laura Corrales, Community Investment Fund Coordinator, Selina Barajas 

UArizona and Guest Instructors and Reviewers:  Mireya Ballesteros, Cara Buchanan, Michelle Nicole Boyer Kelley, Denisse Brito, Lisa Duncan, Federicco Fabbri, Dr. Leigh-Anna Hidalgo, Stephanie Husman, Dr. Meg Jackson Fox, Ashley Swinford, Juliana Tobar, Emily Weirich, Kenny H. Wong, and all the UArizona students and members of our communities who made this project come to life. 

(Left) “Photo of El Pueblo” is a photo of a historic snapshot of the El Pueblo patio found at Congressman Raύl Grijalva’s office, and is produced by PAH 200 student Neylan Jeffreyes for his final project about capturing the traces of time passing within El Pueblo. Photo Neylan Jeffreyes

(Right) “Future” is a photo capturing PAH 200 students at work conducting their community photo-shoot  at El Pueblo, produced by PAH 200 student Riley Swindall for her final project documenting the coming together this semester of two communities,  El Pueblo and her class. Photo by Riley Swindall.

Visit CCP for Exhibition Opening Day and enjoy the North American premiere of The Linda McCartney Retrospective, photography by her beloved teacher, Hazel Larsen Archer, an image+sound installation co-created with Arizona Arts Live, and hands-on activities.

Beginning at noon in the Forum at UA's Health Sciences Innovation Building (HSIB), Sarah Brown, Photographic Curator of the Linda McCartney Archives, will speak on Linda McCartney’s life and legacy, followed by a Q&A moderated by Dr. Rebecca Senf, Chief Curator, Center for Creative Photography. 

The day will be filled with exciting activities outdoors inspired by the Center and our exhibitions! Visitors will be invited to create their own Linda McCartney-inspired cyanotypes, exchange their favorite recipes in the “Take a recipe, leave a recipe” table, or chat with vegan advocates Gissel Guzman and Hannah Hernandez about plant-based eating. Color with CCP Collection Coloring Pages, engage with the CCP exhibitions with our scavenger hunt Bingo, and much more!

*Free first-come, first-serve tickets will be available beginning when doors open at 10am, both at CCP and the HSIB building. 75 tickets will be reserved for members; 25 tickets reserved for students with student IDs; and 300 tickets for general admission. At 11:45am, the reserved tickets will become general admission.

Inspired by Linda McCartney’s plant-based movement and Mary McCartney’s contemporary project “Mary McCartney Serves It Up!,” CCP will bring our community together for creative experiences and meaningful connections through food, photographs, and conversation. Once a month between February and September 2023, CCP will co-organize a community table with photographers, chefs, and other local nonprofit leaders. Topics will center on building together a greener, more sustainable and united community through food + photography.

The community tables will be open to anyone interested in joining and will pop-up in collaboration with community events across Southern Arizona and Phoenix, from farmers markets and artisan fairs to non-profits and small businesses. The first community table will coincide with opening weekend of The Linda McCartney Retrospective, while the last will coincide with the opening of a second major exhibition on Arizonan photographer, Louis Carlos Bernal.

CCP Community Tables Schedule:

Saturday, February 25, 2023: 10:00am to 4:30pm, at the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona

Saturday, March 25, 2023: 8:00am to 1:00pm, at the Downtown Phoenix Farmers Market, Phoenix, Arizona

Saturday, April 22, 2023: 9:00am to 1:00pm, at Children's Museum Tucson, Tucson, Arizona

Saturday, May 06, 2023: Time TBD, at El Pueblo Neighborhood Center, Tucson, Arizona

Sunday, June 04, 2023: 8:00am to 12:00pm(noon), Heirloom Farmer's Market at Rillito Park, Tucson, Arizona

More dates forthcoming.

The Center for Creative Photography in partnership with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona is digitally convening photographer Susan Meiselas and anthropologist Dr. Ruken Sengul on November 17th at 5pm Arizona Time. The conversation will focus on their respective work about the stories, memories and diasporas of Kurdish peoples. 

This talk will stream live on Youtube here, on our Facebook page here, and in the Center for Middle Eastern Studies' Facebook group here. 

Susan Meiselas is a documentary photographer who lives and works in New York. She is the author of Carnival Strippers (1976), Nicaragua (1981), Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History (1997), Pandora’s Box (2001), Encounters with the Dani (2003) Prince Street Girls (2016) and A Room Of Their Own (2017). She has co-edited two published collections: El Salvador, Work of 30 Photographers (1983) and Chile from Within (1990), rereleased as an e-book in 2013, and also co-directed two films: Living at Risk (1985) and Pictures from a Revolution (1991) with Richard P. Rogers and Alfred Guzzetti. Meiselas is well known for her documentation of human rights issues in Latin America. Her photographs are included in North American and international collections. In 1992 she was made a MacArthur Fellow, received a Guggenheim Fellowship (2015), and most recently the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize (2019) and the first Women in Motion Award from Kering and the Rencontres d’Arles. Mediations, a survey exhibition of her work from the 1970s to present was recently exhibited at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Jeu de Paume, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Instituto Moreira Salles in São Paulo. She has been the President of the Magnum Foundation since 2007, which supports, trains, and mentors the next generation of in-depth documentary photographers and innovative practice.

Serap Ruken Sengul is a sociocultural anthropologist from Kurdistan of Turkey. Her research expertise converges on gender and sexual formations of sovereignty, nationalism, kinship, violence, memory and displacement in the Kurdish borderlands of Turkey, Iraq and Syria. Dr. Sengul earned her doctorate in Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin, and completed her postdoctoral studies at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. She currently serves as Distinguished Research Fellow through the Promise Institute for Human Rights and the Center for Near Eastern Studies at the University of California-Los Angeles. Besides her scholarly work, Dr. Sengul has maintained activist research in Turkey since the late 1990 with special focus on political violence in the Kurdish region.

Members and VIP Guests, join us in welcoming David Hume Kennerly, former White House photographer and current University of Arizona Presidential Scholar, for a special discussion on the stories behind some of his most beloved images throughout his career as a photojournalist. Following the presentation will be Q&A with CCP members and guests. Don’t miss this unique opportunity for an up close and personal look at Kennerly’s impactful, enduring work.

 David Hume Kennerly has documented history for more than fifty years, creating iconic images of wars, politics, sports, celebrities and everyday life.

CCP Members, please register here. 
 

Not a member yet? Learn more here and join us for the public event taking place on October 15, 2020!

Can photographs affect our understanding of politics? What is life like as a photojournalist during an American election year? How does photography begin to capture the impact of pandemics and protests?

In October 2019, the University of Arizona and the Center for Creative Photography announced the major acquisition of the David Hume Kennerly Archive. Kennerly, who won a Pulitzer Prize at the age of 25 and became President Gerald Ford's official White House photographer two years later, has provided an intimate view of politics and world events for newspaper and magazine publications, and television broadcasts, for over fifty years. Kennerly was also named the first Presidential Scholar under University of Arizona President Dr. Robert Robbins.

Hear from photojournalist David Hume Kennerly in this in-depth conversation with CCP Director, Anne Breckenridge Barrett, on the challenging and timely topics of 2020, including the coverage of American campaigns, political leadership, and moments of crisis. Together they will reflect on the year since Kennerly's archive came to UArizona, and share selections from Kennerly's newest work to enter the collection.

This free virtual event will stream live on the CCP's Facebook page, and on Youtube here:

CCP Members, learn more about the exciting member and VIP event taking place on October 13, 2020 here.