The Luis Medina Archive at The Art Institute of Chicago

This applied thesis project details the processing of photographic materials and ephemera collectively referred to in this report as the “Luis Medina Archive,” housed at the Art Institute of Chicago since the death of Cuban-American photographer Luis Medina in 1985. This collection of materials has never been accessioned into the permanent collection of the AIC and has remained in bureaucratic limbo for most of its life at the museum. The contents of the archive were undocumented in the records of the Department of Photography and were functionally inaccessible for research and study. To address this issue, my project took an inventory of the 22,000+ objects in the archive; created a database to house the results of this inventory; and provided a recommendation of a selection of prints and materials to add to the permanent collection. This project resulted in the addition of 101 prints to the permanent collection.