Deanna Ledezma

Deanna Ledezma (Ph.D., Art History, 2022) is the Postdoctoral Research Associate for the Inter-University Program for Latino Research/UIC Mellon Program (2022–24). Her specializations include the history and theory of photography, Latinx art and visual culture, and material culture studies. Her teaching and research interests investigate formations of Latinx and queer identities, expressive cultures of diasporas, transnational labor histories, and genres of Latinx life writing. Her current book project Unsettled Archives: Kinships and Diasporas in Latinx Photography examines the centrality of photography in visualizing and materializing Latinx lineages and analyzes how diasporic conceptions of kinship, place, and belonging shape Latinxs’ relationships to photographic practices and archives. In addition to her scholarship, she writes non-fiction based on her own family’s photographic collections and experiences as Mexican immigrants and collaborates with artists on research-based creative projects, including multimedia installations and artists’ books.

During her graduate studies, she was awarded the Inter-University Program for Latino Research/UIC Mellon Dissertation Fellowship, Edman-Waltz Fellowship, Access to Excellence Fellowship (formerly the Abraham Lincoln Fellowship), Diversifying Higher Education Faculty in Illinois Fellowship,Chancellor’s Graduate Research Award, Honoring Our Professors’ Excellence (HOPE) Award, and the Santa Fe Art Institute Truth and Reconciliation Thematic Residency.

Website: www.deannaledezma.com

Book Manuscript in Progress: Unsettled Archives: Kinships and Diasporas in Latinx Photography

“Archival Temporalities and Queer Kinships in the Photographs of Diana Solís.” In Feminist Visual Solidarities and Kinships, edited by Erina Duganne, Susan Richmond, and Genevieve Hyacinthe. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2025. (chapter manuscript in progress)

“Dismantling Latinx Monoliths: Representations of Material Culture, Communities, and Kinship in 1980s Chicago.” In The Routledge Handbook of American Material Culture Studies, edited by Kristin Hass. Abingdon, UK and New York: Routledge, 2024. (forthcoming)

“Book Review of Reclaiming the Americas: Latinx Art and the Politics of Territory by Tatiana Reinoza.” Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture 6, no. 2 (Spring 2024). ( forthcoming)

“Exhibition Review of Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s–Today, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.” caa.reviews, May 4, 2023.

Co-written with Josh Rios. “Photographs from the Fields: The Digital Activism of the United Farm Workers.” In Reworking Labor, edited by Ellen Rothenberg and Daniel Eisenberg, 118–139. Chicago: The Institute for Curatorial Research & Practice at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2023.

Solís, Diana. Luz: Seeing the Space Between Us. Foreword and bibliography by Deanna Ledezma. Chicago: Flatlands Press, 2022.

Riano, Sandra. “Beyond the Frame: A Conversation on Family Photography with Deanna Ledezma.” Intervenxions, The Latinx Project at New York University, May 17, 2022.

“Selecting Views of Las Trampas: Contact Sheets by Fred E. Mang Jr. and David Jones at the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives.” Photography & Culture 14, no. 1 (March 2021): 1–13.

“Regarding Family Photography in Contemporary Latinx Art.” Art Journal 79, no. 3 (Fall 2020): 80–89.

We Eat All the Way Down to the Green. Chicago: self-published, 2019. A testimonio-based chapbook made with Joe Ledezma for Re: Working Labor, exhibition curated by Ellen Rothenberg and Daniel Eisenberg, School of the Art Institute of Chicago Sullivan Galleries, 2019.

Corona: Shadows of the Loved. Memphis: Walls Divide Press, 2018.

“Arrangements.” In Imperceptibly and Slowly Opening: A Group Exhibition about Plants, edited by Caroline Picard and Devin King, 174–187. Chicago: Green Lantern Press, 2016.

Ph.D. in Art History, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2022

Dissertation: “The Fecundity of Family Photography: Histories, Identities, Archival Relations”

Master of Arts in Art History, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2012

Bachelor of Arts in Art, Emphasis in Art History, Texas State University, 2010

Bachelor of Arts in English, Minor in Media Studies, Texas State University, 2009

Presenter, “Archival Homecomings and Latinx Lineages in the Photographs of Diana Solís,” Latina/o Studies Association Conference, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, April 17–20, 2024

Co-chair of New Directions in Latino Studies: The IUPLR/UIC Mellon Fellows Program session with Marina M. Álvarez, Latina/o Studies Association Conference, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, April 17–20, 2024

Keynote speaker, Perpetual Upkeep Graduate Symposium, organized by the Student Association for the History of Art, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, April 4–5, 2024

Presenter, “Risking Betrayal: Rasquachismo and the Stakes of Describing Latinx Vernacular Sensibilities,” Art History and Visual Culture session, The Midwest Popular Culture/American Culture Conference, DePaul University, Chicago, October 7, 2023

Co-chair of New Directions in Latino Studies: The IUPLR/UIC Mellon Fellows Program session with Jennifer Boles, Latina/o Studies Association Conference, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, July 11–14, 2022

Co-presenter of Photographs and Archives: A Workshop on Teaching Methods with Jonathan Karp and Eilin Perez, The Archive: Theory, Form, Practice Symposium, The Newberry Library, Chicago, May 5, 2022

Co-chair of To See, to Keep, to Know: Photography and Intergenerational Knowledge Production session with Alisa Swindell, College Art Association Annual Conference, Chicago, February 17, 2022

Co-chair of Latinx Archives: Art, Counterhistories, and Critical Speculation session with Tamara Becerra Valdez, College Art Association Annual Conference, Chicago, February 14, 2020

Presenter, “We Eat All the Way Down to Green: Agricultural Labor and Latinx Family Histories,” Re: Working Labor: Art, Work, and Working Art session, College Art Association Annual Conference, Chicago, February 12, 2020

Presenter, “Regarding Family Photography in Contemporary Latinx Art,” Contemporary Latinx Art session, College Art Association Annual Conference, New York, February 14, 2019