Lake Verea: Dark Rooms and Other Games

Since 2005, Mexico City–based artists Francisca Rivero-Lake and Carla Verea have collaborated as Lake Verea, merging their identities as queer women with experimental photographic techniques to create intimate portraits of architecture.

With Dark Rooms and Other Games, they turn their lenses to Palm Springs icons, including Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House and Albert Frey’s designs: Aluminaire House and Frey House II, capturing these homes under full moonlight to reveal moods and details invisible under the glare of the desert sun. 

Their process is patient, almost meditative, and the resulting analog photographs transform familiar works of modernism into poetic explorations of the passage of time. Often appearing in their own images, Lake Verea bring the joys of discovery and love into the frame. This playful self-portraiture, paired with tactile frottage works—”frottragraphy”—made by rubbing the surfaces of buildings, extends their ongoing investigation into how photography, performance, and touch bring reimagined narratives to architectural history.

Exhibition curated by Mimi Zeiger, guest curator