Blog / Artist Interviews

Interview with Monica Alcazar-Duarte

Monica Alcazar-Duarte x Bindi Vora

POSTED: 03 June 2020

Search algorithms continually influence what images are seen online. How does this relate to lived experiences of discrimination? How can this connection be made visible? Autograph’s Bindi Vora speaks to British-Mexican artist Monica Alcazar-Duarte about her new photography and research.

For the past year, Monica Alcazar-Duarte has interviewed her family, friends, friends of friends and strangers in Mexico. They have told her of their incidents and experiences of discrimination and racism. Carrying these stories into her project Second Nature, Monica has researched how search engine algorithms reinforce stereotypes by pre-selecting what images are seen online. She desires to make these power structures visible, and the impact of the biased thinking they perpetuate.

Monica is one of the nine winners of the 2020 Firecracker Photographic Grant. If you don’t already know of Firecracker, they’re doing an amazing job supporting and highlighting female and non-binary artists working in photography. Their much-anticipated annual grant was adapted this year to support practitioners during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Autograph’s Curatorial Project Manager Bindi Vora was one of the Jurors for the 2020 Grant. Watch her interview with Monica below, as they delve into algorithms, the power of augmented reality, and how data can inform art.

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Images, from top: 1) Monica Alcazar-Duarte, From the shadows they never stop coming [crop], 2019. From the series Second Nature. 2) Monica Alcazar-Duarte, Here to be caught, 2019. From the series Second Nature. 3) Monica Alcazar-Duarte, We are all cheap labour, 2019. From the series Second Nature. 4) Monica Alcazar-Duarte, All we have left are lemons [crop], 2019. From the series Second Nature.

All images in this article are courtesy of and © Monica Alcazar-Duarte.