Media Burn Archive + Ivan LOZANO
Images: (Left) A look at the equipment at Media Burn Archive. Photo by Edvetté Wilson Jones. (Right) Ivan LOZANO in their studio. Photo by Ryan Edmund Thiel.
“In my own work, I’m not doing [it] necessarily for myself or for the present day (even though that is my way of dealing with the world). I’m very clearly thinking of this as something that’s going to be helpful for future generations, for somebody that comes after me. To give them permission through visibility.””
ARCHIVE:
Media Burn Library
Media Burn Archive is a 501(c)3 nonprofit in Chicago that collects, produces, and distributes documentary video created by artists, activists, and community groups. Their mission is to use archival media to deepen context and encourage criticial thought through a social justice lens. The collection’s roots are in the “guerrilla television” movement of the 1960s and 1970s, when the technology of portable videotape mobilized new groups of mediamakers to tell their communities’ stories with cheap, easy-to-use video cameras. No longer shut out of film and television unions or burdened by expensive equipment no one would teach them how to use, ordinary people were empowered to tell their own stories. The full collection of 8,000+ videos is available for free online at mediaburn.org.
READ MORE: Interview with Sara Chapman of Media Burn Archive
ARTIST:
Ivan LOZANO
Ivan LOZANO (b. Guadalajara, Mexico) is a visual artist, podcaster, and independent publisher living in Chicago, IL. Their creative work focuses on the liminal space created when immaterial digital images (mostly found online and mostly related to their identity as a queer Mexican immigrant) are materialized through physical processes: phototransfers on plastic tape, cyanotype prints, collage, etc. Their podcast, Archives+Futures, collects interviews with artists with links to Chicago who identify as Latin(x/e). Their ad-hoc digital press, Image File Press, spotlights the work of artists who identify as queer, people of color, women, or disabled. LOZANO also serves as Secretary on the board of directors for the Roots & Culture Contemporary Art Center in Chicago, IL. Their work has been exhibited at the Texas Biennial (Austin, TX), Herman Museum of Contemporary Art (Kansas City, MS), the Leather Archives & Museum (Chicago, IL), the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (Miami, FL), the Leslie-Lohman Museum for Gay and Lesbian Art (NYC), the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art (Omaha, NE), and the National Museum of Mexican Art (Chicago, IL).
READ MORE: Artist Profile on Ivan LOZANO