Wesleyan College and Michigan State University have received a $349,605 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to support the Fernando La Rosa Photographic Archive (FLRPA). The grant was announced in an NEH press release on May 8, 2025. The funding falls under the Humanities Collections and Reference Resources category.
The project will be led by Wesleyan College Archivist Virginia Blake and a team of undergraduate students. They will process about 22,500 photographic images taken by Fernando La Rosa between 1965 and 2017. Their work includes preserving, digitizing, rehousing, and creating metadata for these images to improve their research value.
A public website featuring the archive will be developed and hosted by Michigan State University’s Matrix Digital Humanities program. This platform aims to make the photography collection accessible to researchers worldwide.
Fernando La Rosa was born in Peru in 1943 and died in Macon, Georgia in 2017. He moved with his wife Frances de La Rosa—who is also steward and copyright holder of FLRPA—to Macon in 1998 to teach at Wesleyan College’s Art Department. He continued teaching there until shortly before his death.
La Rosa established Secuencia Foto-Galeria in Lima, Peru in 1976—the first school and gallery focused on fine art photography in Latin America. His teaching career included positions at Parsons School of Design in New York City and its Dominican Republic campus from 1979 to 1985, as well as Newcomb College School of Art at Tulane University from 1988 to 1994 where he earned his Master of Fine Arts degree.
The FLRPA contains photographs documenting Andean and Indigenous communities in Peru, Pre-Columbian archaeological sites across Peru and Mexico, notable artists and writers, as well as urban and rural life throughout North America, South America, and the Caribbean. Additional work includes images taken during travels through Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, and South Korea.
Candace Keller—Matrix Associate Director at Michigan State University—and the FLRPA application team noted that receiving full funding on their first application attempt is uncommon: “awarded on the first application attempt (uncommon) and for the amount requested (slightly under the maximum request allowed of ($350,000.00).” Project activities are scheduled to begin September 1, 2025 at Wesleyan’s campus.
“Wesleyan College is the first college in the world chartered to grant degrees to women. Accelerating equality for women since 1836, Wesleyan provides students with an academically rigorous education in an environment designed to build the strength and resiliency to thrive,” according to information provided by Wesleyan College.
More details about Fernando La Rosa’s work can be found at https://fernandolarosa.com/home.html or by contacting Frances de La Rosa at fdelarosa@wesleyancollege.edu.
