Adriana Teresa Letorney’s Profile

SHORT VERSION:

Co-founder of FotoVisura (2009) & Visura Media (2010), Adriana Teresa is committed to supporting the international photography community, as well as education. She has participated in and produced, most notably, Visura Magazine & Spotlight (Publisher/ Editor-in-Chief),  FotoVisura.com (co-founder/creative director), The FotoVisura Grants (co-founder/Juror), The FotoVisura Portfolio Consultations (producer/reviewer). Seeking to support international photography events, Adriana Teresa initiated the Latin American Pavilion during the New York Photo Festival 2008-2010 (producer/curator). She supported the inaugural 2010 GuatePhoto Festival (co-producer/curator) in Guatemala, and curated the IPA's (International Photo Awards) Best of Show exhibition during the annual 2010 Lucie Awards.  She is a contributing writer to the New York Times Lens Blog, as well as La Lettre de la Photographie and the Huffington Post Latino Voices Section.  

In January 2011, she co-founded The Envision Foundation for Photography and Digital Media, an international non-profit organization that empowers young people to become involved in, and contribute to, their communities and the world through photography and digital media.

Adriana Teresa was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She earned a BA from the University of Puerto Rico, District of Rio Piedras in Anthropology (2001), and a BFA in Photography from The School of Visual Arts in New York (2007). Over the course of her career, she interned at Harper's Bazaar Magazine (2006),  Bruce Silverstein Gallery (2006) and Rolling Stone Magazine(2007). In addition, Adriana Teresa worked for The powerHouse Arena (2008), an experience which culminated in her first curatorial project titled Song of Myself. Since then, she has curated numerous exhibitions.

LONG VERSION

 Adriana Teresa Letorney-Hernández was born in 1978 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

In the Fall of 2007, Adriana Teresa curated her first exhibition, Song of Myself featuring Sylvia Plachy, Charles Harbutt, Joan Liftin, Rebecca Norris Webb, Suzanne Opton, Alex Webb, Naho Kubota, Lucille Fornasieri Gold, and Jeff Jacobson. In December 2007 , she curated an exhibition in San Juan Puerto Rico titled MELAO, MELAO:  TUN, TÚN PA’ MI CAÑA - featuring a selection of never-before- seen images by Puerto Rican photographer Hector Méndez Caratini. 

Since the inaugural 2008 New York Photo Festival Adriana has produced and curated the Festival’s sole Latin American Pavilion, including a solo exhibition titled Tu/Mi Placer featuring work by guatemalan photographer Luis González Palma in collaboration with Graciela de Oliveira.  In 2010's NYPH, the FotoVisura Latin American Pavilion featured two exhibitions curated by  Adriana:  Baobabs featuring Raul Cañibano, René Peña, Alinka Echeverría, Liudmila & Nelson, Susan Bank, Alejandro González and Arien Chang; and, Guatemala: A Territory of Many Trees featuring guatemalan emerging artists Clara de Tezanos and Juan José Estrada. Along with the Pavilion, Adriana produced and initiated a series of panel discussions on Latin American Contemporary Photography that included guest panelist and curators Elvis Fuentes (Curator, Museo del Barrio), Ricardo Viera (Curator, LUAG) and Idurre Alonso (Curator, MoLAA). 

Co-founder of Visura Media—an independent visual arts organization—and FotoVisura—an online self-publishing platform and photo sharing community,  Adriana Teresa also developed a photography and film production division to document the lives of emerging and inspirational artists. Her first long-term project has been documenting, both in still images and on video, the life and music of Puerto Rican Jazz musician -MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellow- Miguel Zenón.

In January 2009 Adriana assisted photographer Susan Meiselas while conducting fieldwork for a project about the Puerto Rican flag. She then participated in a video and slideshow installation of the project that was displayed in April at La Villette in Paris.

Since 2009, Adriana began publishing  Visura Magazine, taking on the roles of creative and editorial director.  An independent online, invitation-only publication dedicated to the support and exposure of visual artists worldwide, Visura Magazine values the importance of providing a platform that features personal projects chosen by artist themselves. Amongst those with whom she has has collaborated are Shelby Lee Adams, Jeff Jacobson, Charles Harbutt, Suzanne Oprton, Ananké Asseff, Ernesto Bazaan, Eric Klemm, Ed Kashi and Luis Gonzalez Palma, Miguel Rio Branco, Lauren Greenfield, among others, and institutions like the New York Photo Festival, New York Photo Awards, Lucie Awards and IPA Awards.

Recently, it expanded with the launch of VisuraSpotlight, created to feature the work of emerging artists who are still in school or have recently graduated.

In the Summer 2009, she was hired to develop a photography workshop for a non-profit organization, Niños de Nueva Esperanza, a community, alternative-education organization with nearly 200 boys and girls from the ages of six to 16 in Sabana Seca, Toa Baja, a town in the northeast of Puerto Rico that has been impacted by poverty and violence.  Adriana developed and taught a three-week workshop to 20 students ranging in age from 12 to 15. Now in 2010, this program has continued to develop independently. 

In july 2010 Adriana co-produced the GuatePhoto Festival in Guatemala. For the international exhibition, she curated two exhibitions, Enamored and Fling. 

Adriana Teresa is a contributor to the NY Times Lens Blog as well as La Lettre de la Photographie and the Huffington Post Latino Voices Section.  

In January 2011, she co-founded The Envision Foundation for Photography and Digital Media, an international non-profit organization that empowers young people to become involved in, and contribute to, their communities and the world through photography and digital media.