Arts Thread

Existing within an immigrant family, separated by geography and cultural values, I search for the parallels between the two points we call home: the United States and Ecuador. As a first-generation Ecuadorian-American, born and raised in New Jersey, these locations play a significant role in my photographic storytelling. I return to Ecuador every other year to physically connect with my family that I miss so dearly. When there, I also connect to the air, the sun, and the land. I have an intense appreciation for home, family, and the deep connections we have through our roots. Recovering and nurturing our lost family archive from Ecuador, I have become our family historian, preserving and ingeminating my family’s story, which has been lost through separation and distance. Reimagining these photographs with collage techniques, such as cutting, pasting, and engraving, I am giving the family archive a new life. I contextualize my mixed media work with my own authored photographs that depict family gatherings, the landscape, and the Catholic iconography which reflects the preservation of faith in my family. Throughout my process, I am molding my sense of identity and a more nuanced understanding of my relationship to two homes, while representing the Latinx experience in the United States.