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Latinx Chicago Photography Competition lets students ‘speak back’ to museum exhibition

2025 winner Daniella Ochoa represents a dynamic city through her personal lens

Daniella's hand holds up a childhood photo of her father holding her as a baby on a stoop. The building in the childhood photo lines up with the same building in the present day.
Ochoa's photograph "Forever Home" remembers a sense of joy and togetherness of the small Latino community in a predominantly white neighborhood (Photo by Daniella Ochoa).
Since March, flyers around campus called for “all amateur and burgeoning photographers to capture and showcase the vibrant and diverse Latinx community in Chicago." This message from the DePaul Art Museum and Center for Latino Research announced the launch of the new Latinx Chicago Photography Student Competition. 

Photographers were invited to expand on themes from the museum's current exhibition, Christina Fernandez: Multiple Exposures. Some 18 photographers — including students from DePaul and schools across the city — submitted photos documenting the multifaceted experiences and contributions of the Latinx community through their own lens.  

“Christina’s work focuses on Latinx identity in a way that is very much centered in Los Angeles,” says DePaul Art Museum curator Ionit Behar. “We had this idea of having a student competition where they could explore that kind of built environment and community in Chicago.” 

As submissions rolled in, Behar and Billy Johnson-Gonzalez, director of the Center for Latino Research, reviewed the submissions anonymously, only seeing the images and their descriptions. One photographer stood out: DePaul sophomore Daniella Ochoa submitted the pair of winning images connecting her childhood photos to the current day.

“I was immediately drawn to Daniella’s submissions because they made me think about the Latinx photographers who came before her. The idea of the archive is so important and so present in Latinx photography, even the panelists mentioned that meta photograph presence,” Behar explains. “She pointed to the change of Chicago through taking photos from her childhood and coming back to the same site and seeing the differences.”

The competition culminated with a panel discussion on Chicago Latinx photography featuring artists Jonathan Michael Castillo, Teresita Carson, Juan Molina Hernandez and Jonathan Vega. Ochoa's photos were highlighted at the event, placing the winner in community with other Latinx photographers.

Daniella's hand holds up a childhood photo of her mother standing in the sidewalk with toddler Daniella in a stroller. The sidewalk lines up with the same sidewalk in the present day.
Ochoa's photograph "Silent Surroundings" remembers comfortable childhood strolls to the park and public library full of her mother's stories told in her native language (Photo by Daniella Ochoa).

Bringing family history into focus
A graphic design and user experience design student, Ochoa rekindled her interest in photography through the beginner photography class required for her major. While she had participated in a photography camp as a teenager, she didn’t view herself as a photographer.

“When I won the competition, I was in disbelief because I don’t even major in photography,” Ochoa explains. “I’m thankful for my professor, YoungSun Choi. She really pushed me in class and motivated me to do well. She was the one that introduced me to the competition in the first place and suggested that I join.”

A headshot of student Daniella Ochoa.
Sophomore Daniella Ochoa reflects on her childhood through photography (Photo courtesy of Daniella Ochoa).

Ochoa’s submitted photos were part of her class final, where she chose to explore a more conceptual approach to photography.

“I was looking through my childhood photos and realized that I still live around the places where the photos were taken. I see them every day, but things might be different now. I really wanted to explore that idea: seeing the past and the present within the project,” Ochoa says.

She had taken many similar photographs that unite the past and the present in Ravenswood. There were childhood photos of her with cousins or just by herself, but the pictures with her parents resonated with her. The close connection with her mom and dad, especially as an only child, led her to focus on that relationship in the project.

“I’m really glad I took the photos that were shown during the panel. It made me understand, on a different level, how important my childhood and those formative years were to me,” Ochoa says. “My parents really supported me through all of it, and it was a reminder of how thankful I am for everything.”

Learn more about DePaul Art Museum and the current exhibition on view on their website.