MADRE
by Marisol Mendez
portfolio winners call 'URBANAUTICA INSTITUTE AWARDS 2022', 2022
Category: Memories and Traditions
MADRE celebrates the diversity of Bolivian culture, focusing on the representation of women. The project takes a critical stance that questions both my personal and national history, as well as the place women have been granted in it. This series lays out a narrative through a multiplicity of bodies, symbols and times that subverts Catholic icons, relating them to the indigenous folklore. Likewise, the interspersed documentary and staged photographs mean that new Bolivian identities can be added in the first and third person.
MADRE includes indigenous and mestizo women, reinterpreted religious and pagan figures, intervened family photographs, rediscovered Andean traditions, and carefully staged portraits. The rich variety of images invites us to question the white, patriarchal canon that prevails in the representation of Bolivian women, alongside the presence of class struggles and religious influences.