Para Mi Luz
(2021 - forever growing)
Photographic installation, archives courtesy of Ermelinda Gomez-Reece and Maria Olga Gomez
A series made as an homage–an altar–a memory room for her family. My mother was the person who taught me photographs of our family hold meaning; spiritually. I use this in my daily practice of the archives. If I bring them into circulation, celebrate, and protect them; they can live again. Para Mi Luz, came from writings I found repeatedly on the back of my grandfather’s archives. Luz, was Mama Grande Luz, my grandfather’s grandmother, my great-great-grandmother. Any picture of him as a child well into his young adult years was signed by him to be given to her. The phrase para mi luz (for my light), was used in the same gesture of creating this work. It is work made for my mother, for my grandparents, and for myself. It is my way of “gifting” the archives back. It is fragmented memories–due to my grandfather passing away when I was young and not growing up with my grandmother. I am catching up on lost time. I am learning my family history, their identities, and myself. The work goes through the stages of joy, trauma, care, and grief. I lament over the day I lose my loved ones within these images. I cried for those who have left that I shared memories with and mourn those that I didn’t experience growing up but get to have pieces of them in the archives. When I often look through my archives I am left finding parts of myself that I never knew existed while grieving the memories or loved ones that are no longer. It leaves a mark for me to continue embracing them.