(A Falta) De Pan, Tortillas

An Analysis of Decolonization and Immigration Despite being such a cornerstone of Mexican identity, tortillas, more specifically the ones made out from maize, are looked at as a lesser sustenance than bread or other wheat-based products. Along with European colonization, Spanish conquistadors introduced inhabitants of New Spain to various foreign nourishments, among them: sugar and wheat, thus introducing New Spain to bread - all which remained expensive delicacies throughout colonial times. It is fair to say modern Mexican gastronomy is inseparable from its Spanish influence; some would say it’s a fitting example of the country’s mestizaje or, mixing of racial heritages. “A falta de pan, tortillas” is a Mexican refran, or saying, which translates to “In lack of bread, there’s tortillas” which means to say: one has to find a way to adapt to any given situation despite our wish for an alternative. In my family’s case and, presumably, as it is in most immigrant families’ cases, this saying summarizes the mindset one has to have upon starting a new life within a foreign culture, a different environment and without recognizable faces. This conceptual body of work made up of five chronological sections, is a visual and decolonial rendition of my family’s journey as immigrants by way of retrieving, distorting and repurposing archived identification documents and family photographs – proof of our existence and records of our memories. A visual interference of history and memory, by interfering and manipulating personal family records as basis to my work, I am displaying the broken colonial lens through which postcolonial cultures intuitively see the world, while also exploring my own family’s journey through decolonization and immigration. My hands-on exploration process involves the repetition and documentation of permanent markings created for a final body of work – representative of the everlasting, multi-faceted aspects that shape our identities and world views. This body of work is a rough abstraction, or an incomplete summary, of a story that my family continues to write each day. Manipulating expired identification documents allows me to reject and ignore colonial classification systems and bureaucratic procedures. Within their new context, or at least without a bureaucratic one, these identity photos are not required to be signed on the back, they are not required to be sent in pairs and they are not displayed in a singular fashion. There are no names to the faces except my own, no dates to abide to, no hair regulations; there are no complicated administrative procedures. Utilizing images that I had not taken myself sprung out of an interest in exploring the relationship between images of identification within differing institutional purposes (ie. a school ID, bus pass, library card, passport photos, mugshots, etc). I was inspired by Kehinde Wilder talking about portraiture as a choice, as “an ability to position your body in the world – for the world to celebrate you on your own terms… the mugshot removes all of that power, all of that control.” Placing the camera outside of mine or a loved one’s hands and using portraits that are constrained to certain compositional guidelines, limited my ability to dictate what I could do with the images - reflecting the constrained and preconceived notions we grow up with. An overall theme within my series is that of the absence of information; whether literal or through material manipulation/digital data intrusion and erasure - aspects of life that are voluntarily and involuntarily left behind through the processes of immigration/emigration and colonization/decolonization. This abstract biographical documentation was made possible by many more lives than mine - I am grateful for the people these images represent, for the culture and memories that they preserved, however fragmented, and all the different types of dust these photographs collected.