Mercedes Dorame
I Will Come from the Ocean - Mooomvene Kimaaro2022

Not on view

No image

Artist or Maker: Mercedes Dorame
United States, Los Angeles, born 1980
Title: I Will Come from the Ocean - Mooomvene Kimaaro
Date Made: 2022
Medium: Inkjet print (pigment based)
Dimensions: Primary support: 43 15/16 × 44 in. (111.6 × 111.76 cm) Image: 36 × 36 in. (91.44 × 91.44 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by LENS: Photography Council, 2022
Accession Number: M.2023.43.1
Classification: Photographs
Collecting Area: Photography
Curatorial Notes: Mercedes Dorame uses photography to explore, reimagine, and connect to her Gabrielino-Tongva heritage. She has stated, “I am interested in the problematics of living in a place that once belonged to my ancestors, a place I feel connected to, yet have limited access to.” In the series Everywhere Is West, she explores the Channel Islands, part of Tongva ancestral lands, uncovering elements in nature that are culturally significant and speak to the interconnectivity of living beings. This photograph of a rock covered with abalone invokes the importance of the shellfish to the Tongva community as a food source and for making fish hooks and adornments. Climate change and overfishing has placed the abalone in the endangered category. (For other images in the Everywhere Is West series, see M.2023.43.2 and .3.)

Eve Schillo

2024

Not on view

No image

Artist or Maker: Mercedes Dorame
United States, Los Angeles, born 1980
Title: I Will Come from the Ocean - Mooomvene Kimaaro
Date Made: 2022
Medium: Inkjet print (pigment based)
Dimensions: Primary support: 43 15/16 × 44 in. (111.6 × 111.76 cm) Image: 36 × 36 in. (91.44 × 91.44 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by LENS: Photography Council, 2022
Accession Number: M.2023.43.1
Classification: Photographs
Collecting Area: Photography
Curatorial Notes: Mercedes Dorame uses photography to explore, reimagine, and connect to her Gabrielino-Tongva heritage. She has stated, “I am interested in the problematics of living in a place that once belonged to my ancestors, a place I feel connected to, yet have limited access to.” In the series Everywhere Is West, she explores the Channel Islands, part of Tongva ancestral lands, uncovering elements in nature that are culturally significant and speak to the interconnectivity of living beings. This photograph of a rock covered with abalone invokes the importance of the shellfish to the Tongva community as a food source and for making fish hooks and adornments. Climate change and overfishing has placed the abalone in the endangered category. (For other images in the Everywhere Is West series, see M.2023.43.2 and .3.)

Eve Schillo

2024