Chicana Feminism and Laura Aguilar
Chicana Feminism and Laura Aguilar Laura Aguilar was a Mexican-Irish woman born in San Gabriel, California in 1959. She was a member of the LGBT community, resulting in her photographing other LGBT WOC for some of her collections. Many of her most famous works explore notions of femininity and self-image. She recently passed in 2018. Aguilar’s works uniquely look at her experience as a plus-size, LGBT, woman of color. Many of her photographs depict her naked body, likely to normalize seeing women’s bodies, which tend to be criticized for their size, shape, or amount of coverage. Her art seems to be a form of self-expression, a search for a safe space as a plus-size, LGBT Chicana woman. According to ARTNews , “the photography of the late Chicana artist Laura Aguilar has caused many to see the world differently,” due to her openness with mental health and equity as well as “her identities as a large-bodied, working-class queer Chicana woman” (Duron 2020, 1). Center 99 by...