William Camargo

Informed by his parent’s own immigration from Mexico in the early 80’s, William Camargo explores notions of immigration, identity, and culture of the people he meets and is close to, through the medium of portrait photography and urban landscapes. He photographs in cities where immigrants from Mexico came to, his projects have explored issues that have risen through the lack of representation in a city with at least half of the population is of Mexican decent and other cities in which an influx of Mexican immigrants have changed the very landscape of the city. In a project called "Anaheim: Photographs from the Happiest City on Earth,” he unearthed how police shootings of unarmed Chicano men created an abrupt feeling of a tale of two cities, usually divided by race and wealth, one in which he himself grew up in.

Using objects and ephemera from his parents past and present, he ties the way they have transformed his parents notion of living in the United States, and the way that has shaped his own identity as a Mexican/American. In a current project called The Things My Parents Stopped Wearing he photographs the many aprons his mother owns but stopped wearing as soon as she needed to work to pay the rent. As in his father situation the slow but fast transformation of his cap wearing collection that has ensued as soon as he stopped wearing Mexican sombreros. 

His work has appeared in several publications including Time, Business Insider, The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, and others. William's photographs have also been displayed in art galleries in Los Angeles, Anaheim, Santa Ana, Chicago, New York, Indianapolis, Ventura and Kenosha, WI including DNJ Gallery at Bergamot Station, The Chicago Cultural Center in Chicago, USC's department of Urban Education in Los Angeles, The Loisaida Center in New York, Christen De Haan Fine Art Center at the University of Indianapolis, and the Mathis Gallery at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.

William Camargo has also participated at the ACRE Residency in Steuben, WI and is a current teaching artist residence at Project Art in Chicago, and will be a HATCH Resident at the Chicago Artist Coalition for 2017/2018.