Elizabeth Z. Pineda • Maíz

Originally from Mexico City, Elizabeth Z. Pineda is a photographic emerging artist based in Surprise, Arizona. Her work explores complicated issues regarding immigration, identity, displacement, and migrant deaths that occur in the Arizona desert. Pineda speaks visually of community, touching on language barriers, culture, and society. Her practice is rooted in the craft of hand-made objects as an expression of her deep ties to the subject matter using historic and untraditional photographic, printmaking, papermaking, and book art processes. Elizabeth holds an MFA in Photography from Arizona State University.

FROM THE PROJECT STATEMENT • What does someone’s culture, heritage, and identity say about a person?

This work began after a recent experience when my personal documents were deemed invalid because they held my married name and not my given name when I was first applying for a passport. I would need a picture ID of me as a child to prove my name and my identity. I was deeply hurt, in shock, and angered. It felt like erasure.

I began thinking about the validity of documents. The weight that piece of paper has, that “papers” have. And of the fact that they are simply paper.