In the Summer of 2014, I spent two months in residence as a Smithsonian Artist Fellow. During my time in DC, I researched, gathered and secured permissions for all the source materials I required for creating a new book and exhibition project entitled The Street Becomes. The project is interested in the changing character of the urban street in times of war and peace.

The Street Becomes is entirely based on archival images by other photographers. One part of the images come from the private archives of local Washington DC photographers who documented the Latino Festival during the 70s and 80s. The second part comes from the US Marine Corps archives and documents the American military occupation of Central America and the Caribbean in the early 20th Century. My artistic intervention and repurposing of these source images suggests new meanings for the street and examines the kind of contests that are predicated on overtaking and controlling public spaces. The Street Becomes is a metaphorical construct whose extension maps the interrelation of war; displacement; immigration; assimilation and cultural resistance.

Twelve works from The Street Becomes are featured at El Museo del Barrio as part of an exhibition titled "nasty women / bad hombres", which opens June 13th at 7PM.