Closing Reception: The Aline Smithson Next Generation Award RSVP

About

Driven by our mission to remove barriers for entry into creative expression, LACP continues to deepen its commitment to empower and promote emerging, female identified photographic artists based in Los Angeles.

The Aline Smithson Next Generation Award invites selected artists to create a solo project at LACP and receive membership and professional development support.

Join us on January 10th to celebrate this year’s awardee and LA’s creative communities!

RSVP Below

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Join us and sponsor this event!

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2025 Awardee: Emilene Orozco

Emilene Orozco (b. 1992) is a Los Angeles-based artist whose photography incorporates sculptural objects and staged scenes to explore themes of labor, immigration, and cultural identity. Drawing from her Mexican heritage and working-class background, her work reflects on invisibility, dignity, and the unseen systems that shape immigrant life in the United States.

She earned her BFA in Photography from California State University, Long Beach in 2025. Her work has been recognized with the Aline Smithson Next Generation Award and was selected for the Lenscratch Top 25 Student Prize. Her image, Invisible Labor, was recently featured in Lenscratch’s international student showcase.

Emilene’s practice combines documentary and conceptual strategies, staging poetic, object-based photographs that utilize materials such as gloves, bricks, textiles, and currency.

These constructed scenes reveal the labor and sacrifice that often go unnoticed in dominant narratives. She has exhibited at the Vincent Price Art Museum, Irvine Fine Arts Center, and Brea Gallery.

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Closing Reception, Jan. 10th, 11 am – 1pm:

Glowing Earth: A Century of Photography, Immigration and Resilience in Little Tokyo

Flora Kao | Toyo Miyatake | Emilene Orozco | Mike Saijo | Chakashi Tanaka | Fuji Studio

This exhibition offers meeting points between photographers who began capturing Little Tokyo and the Japanese-American experience in the 1920s and contemporary work that is preoccupied with those histories and immigrant communities in DTLA.

The exhibition includes a solo project by Emilene Orozco, the 2025 winner of LACP’s Aline Smithson Next Generation Award, who draws on her Mexican heritage to create visual narratives that center marginalized voices and examine the complexities of visibility, power, and cultural memory.​​​​​​​ Orozco’s work begins with the photographic image and extends across disciplines to articulate intimate stories that highlight the sacrifices of those who remain undervalued in American life.

Go to show page Here.

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Can’t be there with us in person? You can still get involved and take part!

Here are some ways to participate in the work we do:

• Become a member and create your own photographic journey.
• Purchase a Limited Edition by Emilene Orozco (Comming Soon)
• Purchase annual membership for a student.
• Donate on behalf of our winner, right here.
• Support artists and the photographic community, check out LACP’s store here.
• Match funds for the Sugarshack Fund and help us eliminate barriers for students, youth and emerging artists.

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SPECIAL THANKS TO

Little Tokyo Historical Society

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SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR INDIVIDUAL DONORS

Karen Constine, Dena Eber, Michelle Elkins, Bootsy Holler, Susan Lapides, Lisa McCord, Kristen O’Connor, Harry Steinway and Sandra Young

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THANK YOU TO OUR CORPORATE SPONSORS AND SUPPORTERS

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THANK YOU TO OUR MEDIA SPONSORS

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2024 Aline Smithson Next Generation Award exhibition:

Flourish, by Stephanie Shih, Inagural Honoree

Details

• Date: Saturday, January 10th, 11am-1pm PST
• Free and Open to the Public
• Location: Downtown Los Angeles (LACP Headquarters), 252 S. Los Angeles St., Los Angeles, CA 90012.
• Parking: Street parking, Public parking: Terasaki Budokan Recreation Center (paid, underground, just across the street from LACP) and Joe’s Auto Parks Parking, 330 Main St, Los Angeles, CA 90013 (paid, surface).

If you have additional questions please email info@lacphoto.org.

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