CCNY | Rachelle Mozman | La Negra y su Pequeña | A CCNY Darkroom Residency solo exhibition

La Negra y su Pequeña, a solo exhibition by 2012 CCNY Darkroom Resident Rachelle Mozman, shows recent work that develops on Mozman’s fascination with self and familial identity. This exhibition marks the second of four solo exhibitions from the recipients of the 2012 CCNY Darkroom Residency Program.

Rachelle Mozman says about La Negra y su Pequeña: …the pictures read as a chapter within my series Casa de Mujeres. The images describe La Negra, as she transitions to the United States with her younger daughter Pequeña. La Negra is the darker twin sister in Casa de Mujeres. The character Pequeña is a construction played by my mother and myself. It is my mother’s body and my face digitally blended together that makes her. In this work, both La Negra and Pequeña struggle with the shift in identity that immigrating to a small town in the United States stirs in them. The conflict is in attempting to assimilate to a new culture, where the history of color and the distinction in class transforms how they see themselves. The new culture they are now in becomes a powerful internalized voice that gets acted out upon.

This work is based on an interpretation of my own family history. The character La Negra is based on family. Her move to a small southern town in Virginia and her integration through marriage into a North American family as a Latina woman is the base of these pictures. Although Pequeña is a fictional character, she represents my mother who made the move with her.

Rachelle Mozman grew up in New York City, and New Jersey and currently makes work between Brooklyn and Panama City, Panama. Mozman has an MFA from Tyler School of Art. As an artist working in photography and video her practice intersects document, narrative and performance. Mozman is fascinated with ideas of ethnography and her work engages themes around family, class and gender divides. In 2011 Mozman, exhibited in El Museo del Barrio Bienal the (S) Files. She was selected to be a 2011 artist in residence at Smack Mellon. Mozman exhibited her series Costa del Este through En Foco’s Traveling Exhibition program and she participated in 31 Women in Art Photography, both in 2010. A selection of photographs from her series Costa del Este were published in the Light Work annual Contact Sheet as well as Humble Foundation’s, The Collectors Guide to New Art Photography Vol. 2.

Mozman is a Fulbright Fellow, and has exhibited at the Chelsea Museum, New York, New York, The DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts, the Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, California, the Shore Institute of Contemporary Art, Long Branch, New Jersey, Festival de la luz at the Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina the Instituto Cultural Itau, São Paulo, Brazil, the Friese Museum, Berlin, Germany, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile, Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales, Montevideo, Uruguay, Centro Cultural de España, Mexico City, Mexico, Festival Biarritz, Biarritz, France, as well as the IX Bienal de Cuenca, Ecuador.

Mozman lives with her husband, musician Caito Sanchez, their son, and cat. Her website is www.rachellemozman.com.

The CCNY Darkroom Residency Program offers local photographers much-needed workspace in New York City as well as access to the CCNY community and programs. Each year, emerging photographers living in New York City are invited to apply for this program. The four recipients of the 2012 CCNY Darkroom Residency Program – Tiana Markova-Gold, Rachelle Mozman, Rob Stephenson, and Joseph Sywenkyj – are the first residents to have solo exhibitions, thanks to the generous support of The Jerome Foundation. For more information about the CCNY Darkroom Residency Program, please visit our website.