La casa que habla
by Paula Bedoya

Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia
Graduation year: 2022

portfolio shortlisted call 'BLURRING THE LINES 2022', 2022

Hopefully, when we come into the world, the first place we get to inhabit is a house. There are many representations of this, but in essence, it is the primordial space that gives shelter to the physical, moral, and poetic energies that speak, like a body, who was, is and will be with its inhabitant. La Casa que habla is a photographic essay on two women, Grace and Marthica, documented through portraiture in their homes. For them, it is more significant than usual to be able to have a home today because they have experienced wandering, abandonment and abuse since they were children. The house is the basis of the sense of identity, security and shelter; not having it, made them go through complex paths that led them to make circumstantial decisions, such as practicing prostitution for many years. Their apparently different stories converge as a social phenomenon in a country like Colombia. Grace's story is tinged with melancholy, guilt and redemption implied by the absence of one of her sons, who died while being homeless. Marthica's story evokes the hope, joy and noble spirit of a woman who has known how to resist from love, because she lacked a bed, a constant mother figure and a full childhood. The house, seen from its symbolic potential and metaphorical qualities, represents women: both are in the process of being built; the bricks have been put with sacrifice one by one, until raising walls that are finished little by little, as healing their own wounds; they paint them with colors that reflect their own emotions. They dwell to heal.


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