Taos native Barbara Lucero Sand has a BFA in photography from Northern Arizona University and received her MFA in photographic studies from Arizona State University under the directorship of the renowned photo historian and art critic Bill Jay. Her creative work focuses on historic photographic processes. In addition to her MFA, Lucero Sand received a graduate certificate in museum studies in anthropology while director of Northlight Gallery, ASU's fine art photographic collection and exhibition space.
While director, she organized numerous exhibitions, lectures and educational programs. She was also a contributing writer and editor on a number of photo-related books and publications. She has taught collections care and exhibition planning and design at the undergraduate and graduate levels at ASU and as a faculty member in museum studies at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Lucero Sand has worked as curator and as a curatorial team member on a number of major international and national exhibitions at IAIA, ASU Art Museum and at the National Hispanic Cultural Center Art Museum in Albuquerque.
Through the Lens: Creating Santa Fe runs through Oct. 25 at the Palace.
Since the 1850s, many of the most-recognized names in photography have focused their lenses in and on Santa Fe. Through their creative efforts, they have documented the city and its visual history, helping to create the mystique of Santa Fe. Photography has long been significant in the construction of notions of space and place, landscape and identity and, especially in Santa Fe, has helped define the geographical imagination. Curated by photographer and educator Krista Elrick and Palace of the Governors Curator of Photography, Mary Anne Redding, Through the Lens examines the history of Santa Fe through the visual record created by internationally respected photographers.
Both documentary and fine art photographers were drawn to the region’s land, its peoples, the regional architecture, and the quality of light found nowhere else in the world. The project showcases outstanding photographs that reveal the aesthetic excellence of the artists working in Santa Fe. While the images document the city, they have also been used, historically, as part of the marketing of the Santa Fe image and as a draw to other artists.
