My favorite presentation in week 8 was probably Laura Aguilar. At the start of the course when we were selecting artists, she was one of the ones that I was initially drawn to! It was this series of images, the ones taken in Joshua Tree, that really caught my attention. Having been to Joshua Tree a couple of times, I immediately recognized the rocks. I think it's actually the "Jumbo Rocks" area, which I thought was very clever given the idea behind the photos. I was really glad that the presenter brought attention to them and went in-depth about the ideas behind the photos. Visually, they catch your attention and are hard to forget, but you also know that there's something deeper happening here.
It was also nice to learn about Aguilar as a person and to see other pieces she created. She was very unapologetic about who she was, which was a very hard thing to do during the time she made these. As things are moving towards being more accepting, there's the possibility of taking things for granted. That's not to say that we don't deserve or aren't owed acceptance, just that there's an extraordinary level of bravery behind what she's done.
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