Statement
My artistic practice investigates the mechanisms by which certain groups are excluded from the concept of society and the consequences this has on their lives. I am interested in understanding how a person ceases to be perceived as an equal and how this dehumanization facilitates different forms of violence, discrimination, and exploitation. This research encompasses projects related to migrant communities, survivors of violence, sex workers, and LGBTQ+ communities, among other populations whose rights are frequently violated.
Although my process begins with field research that may share tools with journalism, I consult legislation, archives, civil society organizations, and specialists; my work differs from journalistic logic. I'm not only interested in reporting on an event or documenting a fact from a distance, but also in understanding how political and social structures transform the daily lives of specific people. For this reason, I spend long periods living with the communities I work with, staying in their homes, and building relationships of trust that allow me access to stories that would hardly emerge from an outside perspective.
My commitment is that each portrait preserves the dignity and complexity of those who choose to share their story. A journalist cannot alter the scene they are witnessing. If you see someone dying of thirst, you can't give them water. I can't do that.
This interest also stems from my own experience. From elementary school until the end of high school, I endured constant bullying because of my appearance. During those years, I experienced what it means to be excluded from a group without any justifiable reason that could change the perception of those who perpetrated that violence. My art teacher was the one who created a space for me to belong, and it was through art that I found another way to relate to that experience. Over time, I came to understand that this same mechanism of exclusion recurred in other, much more complex contexts, where certain people cease to be recognized as fully human, and therefore it becomes easier to justify the violation of their rights.
Nan Goldin's work has been fundamental to this process. In an interview about the HIV/AIDS epidemic, Goldin recalled: "I thought that if I photographed them (my friends) enough, I could keep them alive. But the photographs only showed me what I had lost." That reflection transformed my understanding of photography. More than producing images to inform, I am interested in building a shared memory with the people I photograph and recognizing their humanity in the face of narratives that often reduce them to statistics, stereotypes, or news stories.
In recent years, my research has also focused on another question: who benefits from pain? This concern arose from my own experience after being diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder and remaining medicated for several years. Later, in Nepal, I discovered other ways of addressing trauma through Ayurvedic medicine and contemplative practices centered on the body, breath, and discipline.
This experience led me to question models that promise to resolve suffering solely through consumption and to ask myself who profits from pain. Byung-Chul Han speaks of how businesses used to be created from a need; now, needs are invented. We are creating markets to profit from others' pain. This reflection allowed me to establish connections between the pharmaceutical industry, private immigration detention centers, sexual exploitation, and other systems where suffering can become a business model. Pain, in any of its forms, the pill, the person exploited into prostitution, the migrant, has become a business.
These interests take shape primarily through photography, complemented by archival research, fieldwork, and collaborative work with communities. More than documenting pain, I am interested in constructing images that restore the complexity of the people portrayed and make visible what is often left out of official narratives: their connections, their resilience, their capacity for rebuilding, and above all, their humanity.