Xavier Tavera Castro

Xavier Tavera Castro (born August 5, 1971) is a Mexican photographer and artist. He was born and raised in Mexico City where he studied at the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana. Tavera completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) in 2014. Tavera received his Master of Fine Arts in Photography and Moving Images from the University of Minnesota in 2017. He taught photography at Augsburg College and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, and is currently an assistant professor of art at Carleton College. Tavera's work has been exhibited at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Soap Factory, the Eide/Dalrymple Gallery at Augustana University, the Staniar Gallery at Washington and Lee University, the Athens Institute for Contemporary Art in Georgia, the Center for the Study of Political Graphics in Los Angeles, the Galeria del Hospital Maciel in Montevideo, Uruguay, and at ProjekTraum FN at l'atelier Glidden Wozniak in Friedrichshafen, Germany. Tavera received a McKnight Fellowship for Photography in 2003 and his work has been recognized with grants from OverExposureMN and the Minnesota State Arts Board.

Early life and education

Early years Around age sixteen, Tavera started using the family camera to make portraits of family, friends and strangers he encountered on the street. During these formative years, Tavera also became interested in events which brought together large groups of people, such as religious events focused on the Passion (“La Pasión de Cristo ) or the creation of community altarpieces (ofrendas).

Education Tavera enrolled in law school in 1993 at Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana in Mexico City.

Artworks Tavera's photographs are inspired by interactions with strangers on the street, neighbors, and family members. Tavera's portraits emphasize individuals who are often marginalized, and he frequently focuses on members of the Latinx community. Tavera's work is based in prolonged engagement with his subjects. in his theory of photographic experience in which the process begins when the artist conceives an idea, continues over the course of multiple conversations with the intended subject (sometimes involving long-distance travel, culminating in one or more photography sessions, complete with the image post production. Tavera contends that the final image printed on paper is a byproduct or record of the photographic experience. Drawing on his own memories of crossing the border and the knowledge that the border exists as a part of everyday life for Latinas/Latinos/Latinx living in the United States, Tavera photographed views from both sides of the border depicting the surrounding landscapes and portraits of people he encountered in the area. Tavera's intention with Borderlands was in finding the more personal, humane aspect of the region as this resonated deeper with him versus the constant politicization of the land. Kunsthaus Caserne in Friedrichshafen, Germany, and the Staniar Gallery at Washington and Lee University. Tavera was introduced to Captain Manuel Cervantes Ramos, a World War II veteran who Tavera photographed in his home in Mexico City. This interaction allowed Tavera to get in contact with over a dozen Mexican WWII veterans, that he interviewed and photographed.

With time, the project expanded to a more diverse group that included Chicano/a, Mexican, and Latino/a veterans who served in the United States military during various wars. Tavera gained access to members of VFW Post #5, started by a group of Latino/a veterans who settled in St. Paul, Minnesota. While photographing these veterans along with their military memorabilia, he gained immense respect for their service, particularly moved by their courage and their fear of being forgotten. Tavera placed emphasis on capturing their vulnerability and emotional expression. The portraits often depict the veterans in their uniforms, some displaying alterations to their clothes that represented an aspect of their identity, such as their heritage or their military affiliation. Tavera also recorded some of these meetings which he used to give context to the messages displayed in his photographs. In the summer of 2020 he was able to publish a book with Cottage Industry, titled Nowhere To Go But Home where compiled all the portraits of the project and two essays by Andrea Lepage and Mike Soto.

Mascaras Mascaras is an ongoing photo series that consists of photographs dedicated to showing the intimate, often unseen, parts of a mask. Tavera photographs masks that are either owned by members from his community in Minneapolis or are kept in museum institutions as artifacts. Tavera's goal with this project is to document the evidence of the people and the cultures that these masks belong to. in reference to the Biden administration's move to replace the word “alien” with “noncitizen” when referencing non-American citizens. The project aims to provide a humorous take on the label and build fantastical characters, or aliens, that have stories and superpowers of their own. Tavera spent two weeks photographing over one hundred of the hospital staff. The photos were large scale portraits of the personnel who worked at the hospital. He personally installed the photos of the doctors, administrative workers, nurses, and cleaning staff in one of the atriums of the hospital where the exhibition reception was held. The hospital photo collection had previously held portraits of the hospital directors and doctors, and Tavera aimed to dismantle professional hierarchies within the hospital by showcasing portraits of everyone who personally worked in the hospital.