Juan Fuentes: Pride on Your Side
October 6 – December 31, 2022
@ Aurora Central Library

Pride on Your Side was a community photography project led by artist Juan Fuentes at the Aurora Central Library in collaboration with BMoCA. Fuentes’ photography series highlighted 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.

Special thanks to the community for sharing their photographs:
Kwesí Affoh, Fred Badger, Alé Basante, Maria Bernardi, SK Berry, Melina Bourdeau, Amy Forestieri, Skye Hyland, Brianna Marks, Richard Muller,  Anna Olivas, Jenny Over, Sonia Reyes, Viviana Reyes, Juanita Sanchez, Binisha Shrestha, Ani Steele, Martha Supajirawatananon, Students of Aurora Central High School, Students of Empower High School, Liz Truskin

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.

Press:
CBS News Channel 7, “Pride On Your Side" art display puts people both in front of and behind the camera, October 2022.

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.