Catherine Herrera
Catherine Herrera began her photojournalism career at the USC Trojan in 1987, creating her first documentary, 'Alphabet People' in 1992 before a Fulbright to Mexico in 1993, where she began working as a photojournalist and news producer, moving on to associate producer for PBS documentaries before an injury changed her creative life. Since 2008, Catherine Herrera has been commissioned and exhibited in Museums, with her films screened at festivals, with her last project, Spirit Dolls, examining a mission-era shaming practice in reflecting on the shame she had taken on after her own disability. The UCLA NADC grant has been invested her latest 'Martins Beach Project.'
Education:
I learned about photography early in life from my dad and grandfather and begin
my study of photography in school, and teaching myself through practice. I
learned filmmaking the same way, and a friend offered to edit what turned into an
award winning film, and my introduction to filmmaking. Eventually, when I was in
Mexico, I started to focus more on educating myself, with the great opportunity to
study as much as I could afford at the Centro de la Imagen and La Esmerelda. I
studied film/video at Bay Area Video Coalition Certificate Program in Production
and Editing, and Sundance Collab, recently completing a documentary course for
the Martins Beach Project.
I am a self-taught in drawing, painting and sculpture.
Teaching Experience:
- Before COVID, I had interviewed and began talks for beginning teaching the Spirit Doll workshop for a S.F. Arts organization that continues to remain close as of September 09, 2020.
- Unversity High School
- August 2019 -- Commissioned to sculpt and create a life-sized Spirit Doll and perform in public for Carmina Escobar's Feast of Beams Public Art Performance at the Santa Cruz Lighthouse with Indexical.
- Feb-April 2019 -- Triton Museum of Contemporary Art exhibit of Spirit Doll series, and artist talk.
- Jan-June 2019 -- de Saisset Museum – exhibition of photography and Spirit Doll series.