Dwelling within the frames of stream of consciousness, this photographic work caresses under the surface of physicality, and into the metaphysical realm of identity. Turning to our largest source of self-identity: our memories, there lay the unambiguity of the self. Our memories are never the same; everytime we come back to one it changes, we add, we subtract, we distort. So, how then can we presume to know who we are if the biggest deciding factor of our identity is unreliable? However, there is a sort of magic in that; a sort of faith that comes in truly believing you can find yourself within all the falseness of our reality. Railing under the genre of magical realism, there is search for the magic within Puerto Rico, within the struggle of island life. Long before running, the nostalgia rushes in. Thoughts of the island I was born in peek through. The magic that runs through the crystal blue waters, the reality of decay, but the happiness that comes with being among such nature, among such people. Thoughts of a childhood untamed, of the wildlife that refuses to be cut down shifts through my toes, like the sand that warmed the shore on those days. Perhaps I will always doubt my identity, and perhaps the beauty of it lies in questioning all that I see and all that I know; the surface and the deep. This series of work is representative of the oblivion of memory, of the personal, and the ambiguity that comes with searching for an identity. There is the struggle that comes with not knowing, and the beauty that spills over simply seeing.
My memories are alive. Within the acceptance of beauty, also came the acceptance of pain. A pain that stems from hundreds of years of questioning our identity due to the colonialism trauma that streams through our waters and veins. Decay and despair are constant within island life. I see the divisions that run through our culture and the people that seem to ignore it. I ignored it for a long time, as I found myself at 14 starting high school in New york. I was scared. However, this feeling of displacement was no stranger. When I was young and in school in Puerto Rico, I was always doubling. It was double the language, double the culture. I had always been bilingual, but it wasn’t until the scales tipped the balance that comes with being Puerto Rican, with being dual, that I realized I have no identity to call my own. Instead what I had left was a man-made identity as a consequence of the surrounding landscapes of my life. Like every other well-educated, privileged Puerto Rican who comes to school in the United States I blamed my identity crisis to the political standing that Puerto Rico holds to the world’s eyes: neither one or the other; not fully whole or apart. That is where this photographic work emerged from.
My memories are alive. Within the acceptance of beauty, also came the acceptance of pain. A pain that stems from hundreds of years of questioning our identity due to the colonialism trauma that streams through our waters and veins. Decay and despair are constant within island life. I see the divisions that run through our culture and the people that seem to ignore it. I ignored it for a long time, as I found myself at 14 starting high school in New york. I was scared. However, this feeling of displacement was no stranger. When I was young and in school in Puerto Rico, I was always doubling. It was double the language, double the culture. I had always been bilingual, but it wasn’t until the scales tipped the balance that comes with being Puerto Rican, with being dual, that I realized I have no identity to call my own. Instead what I had left was a man-made identity as a consequence of the surrounding landscapes of my life. Like every other well-educated, privileged Puerto Rican who comes to school in the United States I blamed my identity crisis to the political standing that Puerto Rico holds to the world’s eyes: neither one or the other; not fully whole or apart. That is where this photographic work emerged from.