Pride on Your Side is a community photography project led by artist Juan Fuentes at the Aurora Central Library. Fuentes’ photography series highlights the everyday experiences of community members in Aurora. Through library workshops, Fuentes taught community members photography basics so that they were empowered to document their own experiences, and be a part of this public installation.

About the artist
Juan Fuentes is a documentary photographer born in Chihuahua, México, who grew up in Denver’s Northside neighborhood. His kinship to the barrio is evident within his photography, telling the intimate stories of the everyday life of immigrants and Chicanos. Fuentes’ photographs are a poetic approach to seeing and capturing Contemporary America as a Mexican immigrant. For him, it is important to photograph and document because it creates a record that affirms reality, experience and moments in history. It is also a vehicle for storytelling, which allows him to take authorship of his own narrative.

About the project
The Pride on Your Side exhibition and associated workshops are part of a partnership between BMoCA and Aurora Public Libraries. Through this initiative, BMoCA presents free, museum-quality exhibitions by regional artists at Aurora Public Library branches, and complementary programs at the libraries and neighboring schools. BMoCA’s programming at Aurora Public Libraries seeks to expand accessible educational and cultural opportunities for Aurora residents of all ages and backgrounds.

The BMoCA and Aurora Public Libraries collaboration is funded in part by the Scientific & Cultural Facilities District and Kemper Family Foundations, UMB Bank, n.a., Trustee.