Giancarlo Montes Santangelo ’18 Wins Creator Labs Photo Fund Award
Aperture and Google Creator Labs have joined forces to support artists in the wake of COVID-19. The new initiative, called Creator Labs Photo Fund, recognizes twenty artists “for their exceptional vision as well as the strength and originality of their portfolios.” Giancarlo Montes Santangelo ’18 (photography) is among the photographers to receive $5,000 to sustain their practice.
“In an ongoing series, Giancarlo Montes Santangelo traces the effects of colonization in Puerto Rico and Argentina, mapping the relationships between memory, the body, race, and history. Montes Santangelo’s collaged photographs bring together the artist’s own body and staged scenes against archival images from the two countries.
“’These two archives offer an index of divergent histories that cemented the ways in which many—my family and I included—have had to negotiate with the past, present, and future,’ says Montes Santangelo. ‘Collaging offers me a way to recontextualize archival images and position queer world-making as a method of renegotiating with colonial pasts.’”