Laena Wilder
For Laena Wilder, photography not only opens dialogue, but also creates a thought-provoking record. With a degree in documentary photography and a Masters of Fine Arts, the San Francisco native uses the camera as a tool for gathering cultural information. Wilder’s research has taken her throughout the United States and Canada, Western and Eastern Europe, India, North and East Africa and South America.
In addition to her fieldwork, Wilder uses photography with mixed media in the studio to investigate such issues as memory, desire and belonging. Her materials reflect the concepts she is exploring; at times using such media as found photographs, resin, aged mirrors, burnt wood, gold leaf and still images from video footage.
Wilder has been in several group and solo shows. Her works have been displayed in such places as the Royal Ontario Museum, and North Carolina’s Ackland Art Museum, the Center for Documentary Studies and the University Center for International Studies. Her work is in several private and corporate collections including San Francisco’s Modernism Gallery and the Gap Corporate Art Collection.
Most recently Wilder received a Rockefeller Fellowship Grant to continue her work exploring issues of identity and diversity with immigrant and domestic teenagers.
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