Second Sight Conversation:

Amir Saadiq and Gabriela Suárez with Linde Lehtinen

Recorded October 27, 2022

On Thursday, October 27, 2022 we welcomed the Second Sight Conversation with Amir Saadiq and Gabriela Suárez, highlighting the work of these two artists nominated for the annual Second Sight Award. This event was moderated by Linde Lehtinen, Curator of Photography at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.

Watch the recorded conversation

Amir Saadiq

Amir Saadiq is an artist living and working in California.

Saadiq is interested in exploring visual semiotics and understanding how lived experience determines meaning in processing signs and symbols. His practice focuses on the impossibility of Blackness. Saadiq investigates how the juxtaposition of evocative objects forces the viewer to question the biases and limitations of cultural institutions and how they have shaped the interpretation of historical truth and artistic value.

Saadiq earned his BS from Howard University in African American History and is currently an MFA candidate at UC San Diego (2023). He has exhibited work across the United States.

Learn more about Amir’s work on his website and follow him on Instagram.

Gabriela Suárez

Gabriela Elena Suárez earned a bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), in Mexico City. From 2015 to 2018 she worked as a cultural manager focused mainly on the promotion of photography in Baja California. She was the Founder of the independent Cultural Center Nube Nueve in Ensenada, Baja California, a space dedicated to photography, artistic and social expressions.

Her work primarily focuses on documentary photography, gender violence, stereoscopic experimentation, and landscape. She was selected for participating at the National Biennial of Monterrey ARTEMERGENTE (2019), and at the 11th Baja California Photography Biennial (2018). In 2019-2020 she was part of the Photographic Production Seminar at the Centro de la Imagen.

Discover more about Gabriela’s work on her website and follow her on Instagram.

Moderated by Linde Lehtinen, Curator of Photography, The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

Dr. Linde B. Lehtinen is responsible for The Huntington Library's vast photography collection of over 800,000 images. She received her B.A. in art history from the University of Chicago and M.A. and Ph.D. in art history from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She has worked for several museums, including The Getty, the Skirball Cultural Center, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), where she co-curated the exhibition The Train: RFK's Last Journey. Lehtinen's research interests include Asian and Asian American photography, especially from the Philippines and its diaspora, photography of California and the West, and archives in contemporary art. She has published numerous articles and presents regularly on diverse topics ranging from histories of the photobook to decolonizing practices in photography.