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Building the Hmong Photographic History and Culture Archive

Joel Pickford

Friday, November 07 - 11:40AM to 12:00PM

From 2004 to 2012, photographer Joel Pickford created more than 52,000 photographs documenting the Hmong refugee community in California and their ancestral homeland in northern Laos. This extensive body of work culminated in the publication of Soul Calling: A Photographic Journey Through the Hmong Diaspora (Heyday, 2012), accompanied by exhibitions at the Fresno Art Museum and the University of Milwaukee Art Museum.

Pickford is currently leading a collaborative team of scholars to develop an online research archive that will serve educators, researchers, and California's Hmong community. The project introduces an innovative model for photographic preservation—creating collections—in which living photographers intentionally assemble and contextualize digital archives, complete with written narratives, rather than leaving behind disorganized analog materials posthumously.

At SPE West, Pickford will share images from Soul Calling and demonstrate how this groundbreaking archive is being built to engage diverse audiences. Following a brief overview of the CIA's Secret War in Laos—the historical context behind the Hmong diaspora—he will present examples of visual storytelling central to the project and offer guidance on how others can create and preserve archives of their own.

speaker

Joel Pickford

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