Gregory-Rivera, Christopher

Puerto Ricon, b.1989

BiographyChristopher Gregory-Rivera uses image to reconfigure historical narratives around power and colonialism, particularly between Puerto Rico and the United States. Often drawing from or directly using archival images and documents, he applies his background in journalism and research to represent aspects of culture, identity, and place. “A lot of history that’s really shaped where we are today has been suppressed and erased from popular understanding,” Gregory-Rivera told LISTO during a portfolio overview. “I’m interested in rescuing these moments in time.”

The images in the Museum of Contemporary Photography permanent collection are from his Las Carpetas (2014-ongoing) series which depicts the extensive carpetas, or “files,” that were collected by the Puerto Rican Police Department in collaboration with the FBI as part of a surveillance project aimed at silencing the independence movement in Puerto Rico. Gregory-Rivera began documenting these objects to explore the social, political, and psychological effects of constant, targeted surveillance, however, the act of cataloging and displaying these archives also became a way to redistribute narrative power by subjecting the watcher’s materials to the gaze of the public.

Christopher Gregory-Rivera left Puerto Rico in 2007 to study journalism at George Washington University. He has made images for many publications and companies including Time Magazine, The New Yorker, Google, and Apple, to name a few. His work has been featured in exhibitions at Maine Institute of Contemporary Art; Abrons Art Center, New York; Pfizer Building, New York; and others. Las Carpetas was featured in the 2020 MoCP exhibition, Temporal: Puerto Rican Resistance.