New Cheech Exhibit Traces Chicano Photography From Civil Rights to Now; Muscoy Artist Documents Logistics Threat
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Photos by Manny Sandoval: Artist Yulissa Mendoza stands beside their Muscoy-based rooster installation at The Cheech, built from childhood photographs to document how the logistics industry is negatively reshaping their community.
The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture in downtown Riverside opened a new, sweeping exhibition Feb. 7 that traces how Chicana/o/x photographers have used the camera to document their communities, assert identity and challenge power across six decades.
“Chicano Camera Culture: A Photographic History, 1966–2026” is the first major survey to examine the depth and evolution of Chicana/o/x lens-based image-making, bringing together about 150 works by nearly 50 artists. The exhibition moves from the civil rights era of the 1960s into contemporary photography and multimedia installations, highlighting the camera’s role as both a political tool and a means of cultural preservation.
A private opening-night gathering welcomed friends, families and artists into the galleries, with coffee from Mundial Coffee and pastries served as visitors experienced works spanning generations and regions — including voices rooted in the Inland Empire.
Among them is Yulissa Mendoza, an artist whose installation draws from an archive of photographs taken in Muscoy, the unincorporated San Bernardino community where they grew up.
“My artwork is titled and is an archive of photos from around Muscoy, which is where I grew up,” Mendoza said. “Each feather is a photo and they’re all color coded to be the correct colors for the rooster. But they’re all photos from my childhood, which includes liquor stores that I would go to. Just things that are happening around Muscoy specifically.”
Mendoza said the piece reflects both personal memory and the rapid physical transformation they have witnessed.
“I did this because I wanted to showcase the changes that have been happening in Muscoy due to the logistics industry,” they said. “So to me I’m just documenting what is already happening today. So that way we have some sort of an archive for when it’s not here, because I know that it’s coming.”
They said access to institutional spaces like The Cheech is especially significant for artists from working-class Inland Empire communities.
“I think it’s important that I’m in here and that other people from San Bernardino or in the IE are in this exhibit specifically because it shows the scale that we’re at,” Mendoza said. “There’s so many great, talented artists. Working artists.”
The exhibition also brings together photographers across generations, placing early trailblazers — including Louis Carlos Bernal, Luis C. Garza, George Rodriguez and María Varela — alongside artists who emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, such as Kathy Vargas, Ricardo Valverde, Christina Fernandez and Ken Gonzales-Day, as well as contemporary voices continuing to expand the medium today.
Behind the scenes, museum preparators worked intensively to transform the gallery space in time for the opening.
Eric Martinez, The Cheech’s lead preparer described the exhibition as one that connects historical movements to present-day artistic practice.
“I know that this is the inaugural exhibition for this show,” he said. “The hopes are that it’ll plan to tour, but it’s a large survey of Chicano photography, starting back with the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s and through today.”
He said the goal of installation work is to ensure the art remains the focal point.
For artist Daniel Ramos, who was born in Chicago and now lives in New York City, participating in the exhibition represents both professional recognition and a continuation of deeply personal work.
“Elizabeth Ferrer actually selected some of my work to be in an exhibition in Woodstock, New York in 2018,” Ramos said, describing how his relationship with the exhibition’s curator began.
His featured project, “The Land of Illustrious Men,” combines photography, personal artifacts and handmade bookmaking to explore migration, family and identity after he returned to Mexico following his mother’s death.
“So as a photographer, I was like, man, I would be interested to see what the border life is like and make pictures,” Ramos said. “So I said, why do I have to photograph others when I could think about my experience?”
He described the work as an effort to document difficult truths without embellishment.
“My art is a book that tells that story in photographs and also with memorabilia and other stuff that I collected through my family,” Ramos said. “I don’t embellish it.”
“Chicano Camera Culture: A Photographic History, 1966–2026” is available at The Cheech from Feb. 7, 2026, through Sept. 6, 2026, with a companion presentation at the Riverside Art Museum through July 5, 2026. The exhibition is supported by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation.
