Carol Priego

Carol Priego is a visual artist and educator based in Brooklyn, NY. Her practice uses photography, installation, and participatory projects to examine ecological and political narratives, particularly around prickly pear cultivation across the Mediterranean, United States, and Mexico.

Carol Priego is a Fulbright Scholar in New York conducting cross-border research on Opuntia ficus-indica (prickly pear) as a vehicle for ecological and political narratives across the Mediterranean, the United States, and Mexico. She is a visual artist and educator whose practice explores how images shape collective imaginaries and our relationships with territory, ecology, and memory. Through photography, installation, and experimental image-making, she creates participatory projects that examine visibility, belonging, and the interconnectedness of bodies, landscapes, and social systems. Her work combines analog, digital, and experimental photography, archival research, and collaborative methodologies. Her project Imaginary Island traces a vanished South Bronx island that once held native prickly pear, through its transformations into Freedomland amusement park, Bay Plaza Mall, and Co-op City cooperative housing, exploring how places are reshaped by power, memory, and imagination.