William Camargo
May 2022
William Camargo is an arts educator and photo-based artist born and raised in Anaheim, California. He is currently chair of Anaheim’s Heritage and Culture Commission and a lecturer in photography at the University of California San Diego. He attained his MFA from Claremont Graduate University and BFA from Cal State Fullerton. He is the founder and curator of Latinx Diaspora Archives, an archive Instagram page that elevates communities of color through family photos. He uses photography, installation, public interventions, and archives to address issues of gentrification and Chicanx/Latinx histories in a city. William uses counter-narratives that amplify, expose, and destroy hegemonic structures within local city histories, something that his own public education did not teach.
Camargo has held residencies at ACRE, Chicago Artist Coalition, NYU’s Latinx Project, Project Art, and an upcoming residency at TILT Institute for the Contemporary Image. He was a runner-up for the Aperture Portfolio Prize 2021 and had work included in the Latinx edition of Aperture Magazine (Winter 2021). He has lectured at Gallery 400 (Chicago), Stanford University, Syracuse University, University of North Carolina (Greensboro), University of San Diego, USC Roski School of Art, and University of Tennessee (Chattanooga), and others.