In "The Body and the Archive", Allan Sekula describes portraiture as “a double system: a system of representation capable of functioning both honorifically and repressively.” This concept serves as the foundation for Jonathan Vega’s exhibition, "A Double System".

"A Double System" engages with two distinct photographic archives. The first acknowledges the democratization of photography and its accessibility to the middle class, allowing individuals to document their own narratives. In this honorific collection, Vega draws from personal family albums, showcasing images of relatives in a manner reminiscent of their display in a family home—an homage to photography’s role in preserving personal and communal memory. 

The second archive, by contrast, is rooted in the repressive function of photography. It consists of mugshots presented in the format of a rogues’ gallery. Sourced from digital records, these images are transformed into tintypes through darkroom processing, documenting the twenty-seven instances in which Vega’s relative was photographed by law enforcement. In contrast to the intimate family photographs, these mugshots—public domain images—categorically mark the subject as criminal. This individual's images also appear in the family photographs. The tintype process itself recalls the historical emergence of the mugshot, which is deeply entangled with the pseudosciences of physiognomy and eugenics—systems that disproportionately targeted immigrants and people of color.

Adjacent to these photographic archives, Vega presents digital images of Cook County Jail, Loretto Hospital, and Humboldt Park Health (formerly Norwegian Hospital)—sites directly linked to the individual depicted in the mugshots and family photographs. Unifying these elements is an excerpt from the Cook County Jail’s website, sourced in 2021, which contextualizes the broader implications of the work: "On any given day, up to a third of those incarcerated at Cook County Jail suffer from some form of mental illness, making the jail the largest mental health hospital in Illinois—and one of the largest in the country." 

Though deeply personal and familial, "A Double System" speaks to a broader societal reality: the criminalization of mental illness in the United States. By recontextualizing the visual language of the carceral system, the exhibition offers a compelling visual critique of Sekula’s concept, demonstrating how portraiture operates simultaneously as a means of commemoration and control.