Family portraits

The first collage I made was on February 14 2020– inspired by friends who also played with images. That Valentine's day, I downloaded the first editing software I found on my phone, went through my photos app, chose 3 photos and made my first digital collage. Since then, in the last few years, I have found a refuge in creating with my collages spaces and moments that do not exist, but are a mixture of images that do, images of myself-the different versions of me-and of the spaces I inhabit-the different homes I have created for myself. At first I decided that I would make my collages only in the form of self-portraits and only with images that I had taken myself, because that allowed me to reflect on and from my lived experience and my body-by and for me.

That was until I had access to very special images of my family. A couple of years ago, my mom found and shared with me a box of photos in my grandmother's house in our hometown, Ixtlán de Juárez. It contained images of my grandparents and great-grandmothers when they were young, most of whom I never knew during their lifetime. Having access to a family archive like this one, with images of my ancestors, of people who are part of me but whom I did not get to know physically or closely-whether because of my parents' migration, our forced return or the different consequences this had on the ways I related to them-completely changed my relationship with collages. Suddenly I had the opportunity to create not only spaces and moments that do not exist from my own memories and photos, but also to create bonds and connections between me and my family that in life could not flourish, from memories that are not mine but to which I have access through these photos. Suddenly I had a tool to live out and transform the grief of loving and knowing I was loved by the family I never knew.

The collages have allowed me, at least partially, to fill absences and rebuild memories.