In the wayward Mexico of today, where sociopolitical instability has prompted society to lose contact with its roots, heritage, and territory, Veracruz is one of many places where Mexican citizens face injustice on a daily basis. In hopes of bringing viewers’ eyes and attention to its reality. I have chosen to situate myself and my project in this part of Mexico.
To open a mountain implies entering its multiple dimensions: the mountain as a way of life, as a secret, as a fantasy, as a history, as a nature, as time. The mountain range of Zongolica in the state of Veracruz, is tracked by the slow construction of these photographs. Its original inhabitants, the Nahuas people since ancient times are country workers and are becoming in migrant communities due to the precarious socio-economic conditions and violence in the region.
Iluikak, means in Nahuatl "close to the sky" is a project that assumes fully the tight relationship between what a photographic image creates and the real it comes from. It leads through the furrow between documentary and fiction. The images create an imaginary at the same time abstract and concrete from the pendular relationship between the visible and the invisible.
professional category
Iluikak (Series)
DESCRIPTION
AUTHOR
Mara Sánchez Renero (Mexico 1979) studied photography in Barcelona, Spain.She was part of the collective boom of 2008.
In her work, she is interested in finding places where she can create a scenario to explore the instability of the human condition. In her images we can witness the dissolution of constructed identity, in isolating men and women from their everyday contexts and instead portraying them within the space of their imaginary fabrication, the space of their mythical existence and thus confront what’s uncertain about human nature.
Her work has been shown in different places in Europe, USA, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa.
She has been awarded by POY Latin American Nuestra Mirada de Memoria e Identidad and SAIF Revelation Photographer for The Cimarron and the Fandango, 3rd place of the Women Photographers Grant of PH Museum with Iluikak, winner of IWPA 2020 and was a beneficiary of FONCA 2018-2020.
In 2019 she was invited as a residencident artist at Casa Wabi and she was tutor in 20 Fotógrafos Atitlán.
In her work, she is interested in finding places where she can create a scenario to explore the instability of the human condition. In her images we can witness the dissolution of constructed identity, in isolating men and women from their everyday contexts and instead portraying them within the space of their imaginary fabrication, the space of their mythical existence and thus confront what’s uncertain about human nature.
Her work has been shown in different places in Europe, USA, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa.
She has been awarded by POY Latin American Nuestra Mirada de Memoria e Identidad and SAIF Revelation Photographer for The Cimarron and the Fandango, 3rd place of the Women Photographers Grant of PH Museum with Iluikak, winner of IWPA 2020 and was a beneficiary of FONCA 2018-2020.
In 2019 she was invited as a residencident artist at Casa Wabi and she was tutor in 20 Fotógrafos Atitlán.
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