TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
As an educator working at the intersection of photography, digital media, and contemporary art, I see the classroom as a space for deep inquiry, cultural responsiveness, and critical making. My teaching practice centers on creating environments where students can question dominant narratives, explore the socio-political stakes of image production, and connect their personal and cultural experiences to broader historical and theoretical frameworks. I believe that art education, particularly in lens-based media, must engage students in a process of both skill acquisition and intellectual empowerment—what Nicholas Mirzoeff refers to as “the right to look,” a radical act that reclaims visuality from systems of surveillance, erasure, and power.
We live amid an overwhelming proliferation of images—both still and moving—that shape our consciousness, influence public opinion, and mediate our relationships with one another. As such, I emphasize not only technical fluency but also critical literacy. I design my courses to foreground the photograph as a social artifact, deeply entangled with histories of colonialism, nationhood, and representation. Drawing on theorists such as Benedict Anderson, whose notion of "imagined communities" illuminates the role of photography in constructing national identities, I challenge students to question how images have been mobilized in the service of both oppression and liberation.
My approach is guided by two primary pedagogical goals: first, to ensure students develop strong content mastery in visual communication, and second, to cultivate engaged, ethically minded cultural citizens. I believe students must be able to speak the language of their medium—visually, verbally, and textually—in order to articulate, defend, and challenge ideas. At the same time, I encourage students to root their work in lived experience, local knowledge, and collective histories. I often begin with personal inquiry as a gateway to research-based practice, and I integrate readings from scholars like Francisco Guevara and Carolyn Dean, whose work on post-colonial aesthetics and cultural survivance offers students valuable models for thinking beyond Euro-American frameworks of art history and critique.
Across courses in digital photography, black-and-white film, time-based media, and community-centered art, I build assignments and discussions that model collaboration, experimentation, and care. I strive to create an inclusive learning environment where students are empowered to ask difficult questions, embrace complexity, and reflect on their positionality. Whether leading critique or organizing site-based projects, I encourage students to see themselves as both artists and citizens—participants in shaping a visual culture that is more just, expansive, and responsive to the communities around them.
I lead by example: my studio practice is inextricably linked to my community work, and I regularly share current research and exhibition processes with students to model transparency, rigor, and interdisciplinary engagement. As a founding director of a nonprofit dedicated to socially engaged art, and as an educator deeply invested in public pedagogy, I believe that the classroom should not be a sealed space but a porous one—connected to the world through collaboration, activism, and shared cultural labor.