Alumna Lucia Loiso (Photography & Imaging ’09) is originally from Romania and came to ArtCenter as an international student in 2006. Currently Lucia works as a freelance photographer & retoucher and stays involved with the ArtCenter community by photographing student projects and Designmatters Interdisciplinary studio courses on a regular basis.
In Summer 2009, during my 7th term at ArtCenter I had the inspiration to sign up for the Es Tiempo Designmatters class. It was the first class of this sort that I took and I was not sure what to expect. When we first embarked on this project, the challenges for a cervical cancer screening campaign seemed daunting. We were faced with a set of problems that were more complex than anything we had encountered during our other classes in school. The challenges we had to grapple with also made this project exciting and inspiring to work on. As the campaign was coming together it became more and more apparent that we could make a real difference in the lives of many women and families throughout Los Angeles. As we handed off the campaign to our sponsors, we were excited to see how it would be implemented.
This is why I was thrilled to hear that USC was going to roll out a pilot program of the Es Tiempo Campaign in Boyle Heights to test its potential impact. Earlier this year, the former Designmatters Director, Elisa Ruffino reached out to me and asked me to recreate a poster that I had worked on during the class, using different models. The poster was used on a series of billboards and bus bench ads around USC as part of the Es Tiempo pilot campaign that has been implemented this Summer 2015. I also photographed the materials around Boyle Heights while the Jacaranda trees were blooming. It was a very rewarding experience for me to work on this project several years later and see the results of our work out in the world. I am also happy to have worked on a campaign that extended far beyond the classroom and is having a positive impact on a larger scale. I am really excited to see where this project is going in the future. I have a feeling that it might become more far reaching than any of us initially imagined.
Es Tiempo is an ongoing initiative of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Keck School of Medicine, the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism that raises awareness and support for prevention and treatment of cervical cancer, specifically targeting Latina women in Los Angeles.
To learn more about Lucia and see her photography work, please visit lucialoiso.com