Untitled

This is an ongoing community-based collaborative project that examines the creation of latinx identity through an experimental form of storytelling. This project came about in thinking about my own multiracial Latinix background, how I identify, and my interest in how other multiracial Latinx construct their identity. What started out as conversations with friends and family, evolved into a larger conversation on identity as a social issue and construct. I combine a subject's hand-written autobiographical text with historical ambrotype wet plate photography. The text is scanned and reprinted as the background to their ambrotype portrait. With the translucent nature of the ambrotype plate, the viewer is invited to look through the physical surface to read the beautiful handwritten prose. When the juxtaposition between viewer, subject and background aligns - a more complete picture of the subject’s identity is revealed.