RAIR | 2022-23

VICTOR YAÑEZ-LAZCANO

Victor Yañez-Lazcano received his MFA from Stanford University and his BFA from Columbia College Chicago. While in Chicago he balanced a freelance career in both commercial and fine art photography. During this time, he also established himself as an arts educator through the Museum of Contemporary Photography and Columbia College’s Project AIM (Arts Integration and Mentorship). In 2012, Yañez-Lazcano co-founded LATITUDE, a non-profit community digital lab for photographers in Chicago. Since 2018, he has been a visiting lecturer in art at various institutions including Stanford University, San Francisco State University, and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.
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Since 2009, I have been dedicated to shaping an interdisciplinary practice that chronicles my family’s history in the U.S. as it transitions from immigrants to first-, second-, and third-generation Mexican Americans. My research begins with collecting familial oral histories and documenting tacit assimilation patterns I believe unique to being raised in rural Wisconsin. In my series ‘the labor of language’ I focus on personal experiences related to the private and public use of Spanish and English. Inspired by research in linguistics, I create ironic sculptures and performances that engage with mundane signs and symbols as well as derogatory terms found in oppressive language ideologies to address notions of ethnic authenticity. In my series ‘the language of labor,” sculptures, installations and assemblages commemorate my family’s relationship to labor in the U.S. dating back to the Bracero Program. Together these bodies of work articulate a commonly overlooked set of experiences that often inform the American immigrant identity.

Roswell Museum

Rair exhibition •  Victor Yañez-Lazcano “conjugations of dream” • March 18 - June 11, 2023

See more of Victor’s work here.