Ojalá nos encontremos en el mar

In the year following Hurricane María, approximately 279 suicides were recorded in Puerto Rico. On July 11, 2018, just two months before the first anniversary of the hurricane, my father died by suicide. Later that year, after receiving the objects he left behind, I photographed each of them and began looking for vestiges of him around the island.

Ojalá nos encontremos en el mar is a photographic documentation of the psychological undercurrents of trauma that provoke suicides in the aftermath of Hurricane María. It looks closely at the challenging emotions of grieving in ravaged, altered, sometimes unrecognizable environments, and the role of crisis in mourning. The project explores these manifestations of trauma in the landscape and through intimacy in interpersonal relationships.