Claire Beckett Artist Talk
Tuesday, November 17, 2026
Doors at 6:00 PM | Talk at 6:30 PM
McNutt Co-Lab Space, UTSA
In partnership with the new MFA in Community Arts at UT San Antonio, join P&L for an early evening with photographer Claire Beckett, whose work offers a critical lens on American identity, cultural representation, and the ways a nation constructs its understanding of the world beyond its borders.
The talk will focus in particular on Defense Language, Beckett’s 2025 monograph published by GOST Books. Developed over nearly two decades, the project examines the elaborate simulations used to prepare American soldiers for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Photographing staged villages, costumed role-players, and military personnel on bases across the United States, Beckett reveals the theatrical worlds through which soldiers rehearse encounters with other cultures. Combining carefully composed portraits and landscapes with military training materials and language guides, Defense Language interrogates the stereotypes embedded in these environments and challenges assumptions of American cultural superiority. The resulting photographs occupy an uneasy space between documentary and performance, inviting viewers to consider how images shape our understanding of identity, conflict, and the people we perceive as other.
We hope you’ll join us for a conversation about photography, representation, and the complicated relationship between the images we make and the worlds we seek to understand.
About the Artist
Claire Beckett is a photographer based in Boston, Massachusetts. She holds a BA in Anthropology from Kenyon College and an MFA in Photography from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Her projects draw on her background in anthropology and her experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Republic of Benin, where conversations with friends about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan prompted a lasting inquiry into America's global influence and responsibility. Her photographs have been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Wadsworth Atheneum; Mass MoCA; the National Portrait Gallery; and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, among other institutions. She is the recipient of an Artadia Award and was an artist-in-residence at Light Work.
Learn more about Claire’s work at and explore Defense Language here.