Guadalupe Rosales's practice is rooted in the preservation of cultural memory, and she preserves archives, records, and projects that bear witness to the breadth of Los Angeles culture. As part of an ongoing digital project, Rosales has created two publicly accessible archives on Instagram, @veteranas_and_rucas and @map_pointz. Drawn from images contributed by people throughout Los Angeles and beyond, these accounts feature family photographs, pictures of social gatherings, and ephemera from raves and parties. Rosales builds these personal and subcultural artifacts into a powerful portrait of community, bringing personal and collective histories into the present.
Hybridity is an important concept for her practice, both as a way of thinking about the complexities of identity and as an acknowledgment of the different meanings that can be contained in singular objects, artworks, and spaces. This is reflected in the way she transforms existing materials and symbols, opening up seemingly familiar things to allow for new interpretations. Through these objects, Rosales destabilizes fixed ideas of culture and gives voice to the intimacies of queer and familial lived experience, allowing ancestral knowledge, personal memory, and contemporary existence to sit side by side.
