Photo by: John Stephens
Stephanie Alvarado (they/she) is a queer nonbinary disabled femme antidisciplinary artist, poet, archivist, photographer, facilitator and cultural organizer for 20 years. Alvarado was born and raised in the Bronx, NY by way of Guayaquil, Ecuador. They alchemize photography, feminist performance, community based photo archiving, collage, and social practice into community building and disability justice practices in public spaces for queer, trans, and people of color through their artist project, Fotos y Recuerdos created in January 2020. Alvarado combines in person workshops on public park lands and community gardens with hybrid and virtual programming for accessible models engaging technologies of photo archiving and storytelling in community. In 2021, Alvarado was one of the first artists awarded the NYC Artist Corp Grant for this project during the COVID 19 pandemic.
Alvarado has held artist residencies and fellowships at Wave Hill Public Garden and Cultural Center, Korea Art Forum, The Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, Witness for Peace, The Laundromat Project and participated in the SU-CASA Artist Residency program at Big Six Towers NORC Program in Woodside, Queens. They’ve held poetry readings at Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden, Pregones Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, Brooklyn Children’s Museum and Kelly Street Garden. Alvarado has had exhibitions at The White Plains Museum Gallery and Inwood Hill Park. They have facilitated staff retreats for the NYC Network of Worker Cooperatives, been an adjunct professor at Hunter College School of Social Work, and have facilitated disability justice and archive workshops for Photoville, The Creative Center, and BRIC Arts Media Center, The American LGBTQ+ Museum, The Feminist Center, and SAGE. Since 2015, Alvarado has served as the founding archive team member and curator for Kathleen Cleaver’s Papers and Family Photo Archive, acquired by Emory University in 2020. Alvarado is a co-curator for the forthcoming traveling exhibition, The World(s) She Made: Composing the Radical Lives of Kathleen Neal Cleaver. They currently serve on the Board of Directors for The Literary Freedom Project and are leading the Disability Artistry Initiative at BRIC Arts Media Center in Brooklyn, NY.