In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, Alejandro Cartagena returns to discuss his mid-career solo exhibition Ground Rules at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, along with the accompanying book published by Aperture. Alejandro and Sasha dig into how both the exhibition and the book came together, from concept to execution. He also reflects on the lasting impact of his seminal project Carpoolers, and how it shaped his thinking around photography, technology, and intent. The conversation expands to the broader cultural stakes of the medium, including Alejandro’s recent investigations into AI-generated imagery.

https://alejandrocartagena.com

https://www.sfmoma.org/exhibition/alejandro-cartagena-ground-rules/

https://aperture.org/books/alejandro-cartagena-ground-rules/

Alejandro Cartagena, Mexican (b. 1977, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) lives and works in Monterrey, Mexico. His projects employ landscape and portraiture as a means to examine social, urban, and environmental issues. Cartagena’s work has been exhibited internationally in more than 50 group and individual exhibitions in spaces including the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris and the CCCB in Barcelona, and his work is in the collections of several museums including the San Francisco MOMA, The J. Paul Getty Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, The MFAH in Houston, the Portland Museum of Art, The West Collection, the Coppel collection, the FEMSA Collection, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the George Eastman House and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and among others.

Alejandro is a self publisher and co-editor and has created several award wining titles including Insurrection Nation, Studio Cartagena 2021, Santa Barbara Save US, Skinnerboox, 2020, A Small Guide to Homeownership, The Velvet Cell 2020, We Love Our Employees, Gato Negro 2019, Santa Barbara Shame on US, Skinnerboox, 2017, A Guide to Infrastructure and Corruption, The velvet Cell, 2017, Rivers of Power, Newwer, 2016, Santa Barbara return Jobs to US, Skinnerboox, 2016, Headshots, Self-published, 2015, Before the War, Self-published, 2015, Carpoolers, Self-published with support of FONCA Grant, 2014, Suburbia Mexicana, Daylight/ Photolucida 2010. Some of his books are in the Yale University Library, the Tate Britain, and the 10×10 Photobooks/MFH Houston book collections among others.

Cartagena has received several awards including the international Photolucida Critical Mass Book Award, the Street Photography Award in London Photo Festival, the Lente Latino Award in Chile, the Premio IILA-FotoGrafia Award in Rome and the Salon de la Fotografia of Fototeca de Nuevo Leon in Mexico among others. He has been named an International Discoveries of the FotoFest festival, a FOAM magazine TALENT and an Emerging photographer of PDN magazine. He has also been a finalist for the Aperture Portfolio Award and has been nominated for the Santa Fe Photography Prize, the Prix Pictet Prize, the Photoespaña Descubrimientos Award and the FOAM Paul Huff Award. His work has been published internationally in magazines and newspapers such as Newsweek, Nowness, Domus, the Financial Times, The New York Times, Le Monde, Stern, PDN, The New Yorker, and Wallpaper, among others.

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, Sasha is joined by photographer, publisher, editor, and educator Nelson Chan. Together, they trace the winding path that led Nelson to his dream job as a professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. Along the way, Nelson reflects on the “guardian angels” who helped him stay the course, the openness that allowed unexpected opportunities to shape his trajectory, and the community of friends and collaborators who eventually inspired the founding of TIS Books. Sasha and Nelson also talk about the value of building connections, putting yourself out there, and treating your career as a marathon rather than a sprint.

https://www.nelsonchanphotography.com/

https://www.tisbooks.pub/

Nelson Chan was born in New Jersey to immigrant parents from Hong Kong and Taiwan and has spent most of his life between the States and Hong Kong. Having grown up between two continents, this immigrant experience influences the majority of his work.

Nelson received his BFA and MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and the Hartford Art School, respectively. He has been exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions such as the Museum of Chinese in America, New York, NY; Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA; The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA; Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany; and 798 Space, Beijing, China. His books are collected in the institutional libraries of The MET, The Guggenheim, SEMOMA, The Whitney Museum, The Harry Ransom Center, and MoMA, among others.

Along with his own photographic work, book publishing and education are extensions of, what Nelson refers to as, an industrious studio practice. He is co-founder of TIS books, an independent art book publisher and was production manager at the Aperture Foundation from 2016-19. In 2025, Nelson was awarded tenure at California College of the Arts but ultimately left the Bay Area to teach at the Rhode Island School of Design as an associate professor of photography.

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, artist, photographer, and filmmaker Tyler Mitchell joins Sasha to discuss his Aperture book, Wish This Was Real. Tyler speaks candidly about learning by doing, the value of taking risks, and the creative rewards that follow. He and Sasha also explore the central role of collaboration in his practice, particularly how that ethos shapes his approach to building tableaux.

https://www.tylermitchell.co

https://www.tylermitchell.co/books/wish-this-was-real-book

Tyler Mitchell (b. 1995, Atlanta, GA) is an artist, photographer, and filmmaker based in Brooklyn. He received a BFA in Film and Television from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2017. Mitchell’s work reimagines narratives of Black beauty and desire, embracing history while envisioning fictionalized moments of an aspirational future. His photographs and films present Black life through themes of play, empowerment, and self-determination.

Mitchell’s work is held in numerous public and private collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Brooklyn Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; and FOAM Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam, among others.

He has presented exhibitions internationally, including The New Black Vanguard (Aperture Gallery, New York); I Can Make You Feel Good (FOAM, Amsterdam; ICP, New York); Chrysalis (Gagosian, London); Domestic Imaginaries (SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah); and Idyllic Space (High Museum of Art, Atlanta). His European touring exhibition, Wish This Was Real (C/O Berlin, 2024), brought together a decade of work exploring Black beauty, leisure, and imagination, traveling to Helsinki, Lausanne, and concluding at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris (2025–26). Mitchell’s photography has appeared in Aperture, Dazed, i-D, Vogue, Vanity Fair, WSJ, and Zeit Magazin, alongside collaborations with Gucci, Loewe, Ferragamo, and JW Anderson.