I was on my fourth trip to Cuba. The year prior, I hard started leading photography trips through a company called Women Photo Tours, where our focus has been creating reciprocal creative exchanges and collaborations with local artists in Cuba. By the time we reached Viñales, a small town in the countryside, we had already moved through the initial butterflies of traveling somewhere new, with a new group. As we welcomed in the second half of our trip, we settled into a quiet, creative rhythm together.
There were 11 of us. All with cameras, taking in our surroundings. We were walking together under the hot sun when we noticed that we’d be adopted by a black and white dog. I guess she picked us. She trotted alongside us for about an hour or two, resting in the shade when we did. Moving along slowly, pausing to take it all in. 12 of us now. Another addition to the group. Our little creative sanctuary we had built together. We chatted about what we might name our new friend. I overheard Teresa calling her Domino.
The symbol stuck with me. Dominos. Black and white, simple on their own, are part of a larger whole. They don’t exist in silos. They lean on one another. They move together. A single action impacts the next, and momentum builds from there.
Grounded in the idea that art making can be contagious, we are the dominos and the image making process is our momentum. We believe that photography is a vital form of world-building, and that community and collectivity matter now more than ever.
Written by our founder, Cat, on her way back from Havana in April 2025.
Our Origin Story
Viñales, Cuba 2025
About Us
Colectivo Domino is an Oakland based photography collective created by and for women and gender-diverse creatives. We are a community of artists and storytellers who believe in growing together through honest conversation, creative exchange, collective imagination, and the power of showing up for each other’s work.
Our gatherings center cis and trans women, nonbinary, genderqueer, transmasculine, and gender-expansive folks. We aim to cultivate a space where members feel seen, safe, + supported. Please be mindful of this prior to attending one of our meetups.
We hold monthly meetups to share our work, offer feedback to each other, and connect in ways that are intentional and energizing. Whether you are early in your photography practice or deep into your craft and developing a portfolio, this is a space to grow together.
Cat Coppenrath (she/her) is a photographer living in Oakland, CA. She currently works as a freelance photographer and over the last 10 years, her multidisciplinary work has spanned clinical social work and non-profit arts as a teaching artist. Her personal work has explored themes of belonging, mental health, feminist identity, and photography as therapy. She is especially passionate about participatory, creative interventions, and the re-imagination of systems as a form of liberation and relational care.
For Cat, Domino is a gentle community offering as a vessel of hope, and an experiment in effervescent and creative collectivity during unsettling and troubled times.
About the Founder
