Vergara Archive Acquired by Library of Congress

January 8, 2015

ROSEGALLERY photographer Camilo José Vergara has selected the Library of Congress to house his photographic archive. The Library of Congress will maintain his record of urban America from the 1970s to 2010s and in time make available a full archive of 10,000 images.

For his website called Invincible Cities, Vergara wrote, “I use photographs as a means of discovery, as a tool with which to clarify visions and construct knowledge about a particular place, or city. … A set of photographs coupled with interviews from a block, neighborhood or a building became the starting point for developing stories that I hope will help establish a place's changing identity. My work asks basic questions: what was this place in the past, who uses it now, and what are its current prospects? Using insights from a variety of disciplines such as ethnography, history, and archeology, I uncover patterns shaping the nation's poorest and most segregated postindustrial cities.”

For more information regarding this important acquisition, visit the Vergara's page with the Library of Congress.

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