Archivist, Photographer, & Writer
Born in Venezuela and raised in the United States, Waleska Del Valle Solórzano works as a cultural researcher across the arts, education, government, and non-profit sectors. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Latin American Studies at Cornell University, where she also holds graduate minors in LGBT Studies and Media Studies. Her dissertation project combines aesthetic theory, art history, performance studies, oral histories, and philosophical analysis to examine how artistic communities across the Venezuelan diaspora draw on the past to animate an alternative to the traditional nuclear family and its spatial dynamics.
Waleska is the founder of the Venesporan Artists Project (2023), a digital archive and directory showcasing contemporary artists of Venezuelan descent. This experimental platform on Collection Builder was developed under the auspices of Cornell's Digital Co-Lab at Olin Library, the HASTAC Scholars program, and the Society for the Humanities.
Her professional experience spans archival research and transcription work with Cornell’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, specifically the Todosomos collection, as well as freelance photography, government service at the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs, and anti-human trafficking advocacy at the Polaris Project. She has lived and worked internationally across the Americas, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Her experiences abroad inform her understanding of displacement, kinship, minoritarian identities, national belonging, and migration.
Waleska holds a BA in Philosophy and History, as well as an MA in Philosophy, Ethics, and Public Affairs, with a CERG in Women and Gender Studies from George Mason University. Her writing has appeared in Chasqui and Intervenxions. Currently, she is based in Denver, Colorado, where she is writing her dissertation.
Portrait by John Michael Howard, forever ago.