2026 SPE Annual Conference: Catalyst for Exchange
Looking for a chapter event?
Past SPE Annual Conferences
exhibitions
2026 SPE Annual Conference Schedule
print this pageExploring Racialization of Photographs through Encounters as an Asian-American
Paolo Morales
Friday, March 20 - 3:30PM to 4:30PM
Georgia 6
My artistic practice is grounded in analog and alternative photographic processes. I utilize the aesthetics of documentary photography while offering an alternate narrative. My hybrid process of optical enlargements from black and white negatives and contact prints from digital negatives acknowledges the history of photographic medium while also pushing it forward, all from the positionality of an Asian-American male.
I am currently absorbed by two projects. In Memphis Tulips, I photograph and collaborate with a working-class community in Philadelphia where people seek to take care of each other in the face of shared adversity. The people in my pictures are welcoming me as an outsider—someone different racially and socially—while also insulating themselves from the gentrification bubbling around them. In Flowering Dogwood, my pictures seek to answer a question: can a photograph be racialized? As an Asian male photographing in suburban and urban environments, the gaze of individuals looking back at me, the viewer, and the camera embodies feelings of distance and suspicion. My pictures show people who are desperate for connection while being distrustful of the world around them.
As a resident of Philadelphia, I seek to frame my talk in the actual and political landscape of Pennsylvania in 2025 and in the future 2026 when this talk will be delivered. I will reflect on other artists who make work in Pennsylvania (LaToya Ruby Frazier's photographs of her family versus Walker Evans' pictures in Bethlehem) and how their pictures create a framework for racializing the photograph.
speaker
Paolo Morales
About
- Board Reports, Letters, and Minutes
- History
- Staff
- Board Members
- Board Committees
- Board Elections
- SPE Code of Conduct
- Caucuses
Join
Members
Annual Conference
- About the Conference
- Overview
- Speakers
- Schedule
- Registration
- Calls for Proposal
- Volunteer
- Sponsors
- Exhibit
- Anti-Harassment Policy
- Hotel & Travel
- Location + Travel
- Hotel
- Schedule of Events
- Schedule
- special events
News & Events
Chapters
Exposure Journal
About this piece
Comments about this piece
Dialogue and critique are important to the SPE mission.
Please join the conversation.