Ada Trillo is a first-generation, Queer Mexican American artist who combines documentary and fine art elements in her photography.
A native of the US-Mexican border raised in the Juarez-El Paso binational metroplex, her work is informed by a deep interest in national and metaphorical borders and modernization processes. She has focused on walls of inclusion and exclusion, such as forced prostitution, climate, and violence-related international migration, and US internal exclusions resulting from long-standing barriers of race and class.
Trillo’s goal is to bring attention to the impact of these borders on exploited and marginalized people and amplify their voices.
Trillo’s first monograph, La Caravana Del Diablo: On the Run from the Northern Triangle to America, was published by Komma (Netherlands, 2021). The book chronicles seven years of traveling with refugees and migrants from Central America to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trillo’s work is in Institutions and private collections, including, The Library of Congress, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Some of their awards include The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Fellowship (2022), The Eddie Adams Workshop Canon Award (2022), The Female In Focus 2020, and The Leeway Foundation Transformation Award.