Creative Capital Awards Cara Romero

The 2026 Creative Capital Award recognizes original, ambitious, risk taking project proposals for new artistic ideas in visual arts, film, dance, theater, music/jazz, and literature, as well as technology, multidisciplinary, and socially engaged forms in all disciplines.

Cara Romero is among the 49 projects selected from 4,546 applications from all 50 states and regions in the United States who will receive up to $50,000 unrestricted project funding, professional development services, and community-building opportunities.

Cara Romero (b. 1977, Inglewood, CA) is a contemporary fine art photographer. An enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, Romero was raised between contrasting settings: the rural Chemehuevi reservation in Mojave Desert, CA and the urban sprawl of Houston, TX. Romero’s identity informs her photography, a blend of fine art and editorial photography, shaped by years of study and a visceral approach to representing Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultural memory, collective history, and lived experiences from a Native American female perspective. 

Creative Capital is a non-profit organization championing artistic freedom of expression by supporting individual artists across the United States since 1999.