Fujifilm/penumbra foundation internship program | 2025
AIDS/ ACT UP | Lola flash
Digitized by Vivien KS
Image © Lola Flash. Courtesy of the artist.
“These slides document a time in both New York and London, when the AIDS crisis was at its highest, in the 80/90’s. They include a host of sex positive images, and of course, ACT UP demonstrations as well as Pride marches. Gathering the slides for Penumbra, was truly a trip down memory lane. Some images I barely remember creating and others are a vivid, somber memory of those who we lost.”
- Lola Flash
Images © Lola Flash. Courtesy of the artist.
Artist Lola Flash with intern Vivien KS looking at Flash’s slides prior to the digitization of the projects.
“The process of digitizing Lola’s collection caused me to think critically about many creative and technical decisions that had never previously crossed my mind in my own practice.
… I never had considered how [metadata] could be a tool for shaping an artist’s conception of their own bodies of work, helping them see time periods, places, and subjects as pieces of a larger narrative arc.”
-Vivien KS
Artist Bio:
Lola Flash’s work explores the intersection of race, sexual identity, aging, and social justice activism, particularly focusing on the visibility and empowerment of marginalized queer communities, especially queer women of color. Through portraiture, they seek to engage individuals often considered invisible, using photography as a tool to amplify stories and challenge conventional norms. As an active member of ACT UP during the AIDS crisis, their practice is deeply rooted in personal experiences which inform their commitment to social change and advocacy.
Their compositions are influenced by themes of Afrofuturism, Black identity, and gender fluidity, creating visual narratives that reflect the complexity of identity in both contemporary and historical contexts. Flash seeks to deepen our understanding of art's transformative potential to challenge, question, and reshape the societal narratives that drive systemic change.
Intern Bio:
Vivien KS is a photographer and writer from Queens. On large format, medium format, and 35mm film, her work tests the physics theory of the “observer effect”: that the subject innately behaves differently under observation—or, in the case of photography, in front of a lens. Previously, Vivien worked at Raw Messina, a photography gallery and darkroom in Rome, and the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin; her work was published in the latter’s annual magazine Mosaic. She currently works at Columbia School of the Arts' darkroom and print lab and volunteers at the Bronx Documentary Center. When she’s not holed up in the darkroom, you can find her on a Citi bike or reading a book.
This program is possible thanks to the vision and support of Fujifilm.
Our Digitization System was made possible by a 2024 Capital Grant by New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
