El Tetas

El Tetas is a photographic essay where I delve, from my perspective, into the life of my maternal grandfather; from the theme of repentance, pain, care and reconciliation that he finds in his final stage of life as well as in his death.

“I was the one who gave my husband four breasts because he had another one, and that's why I gave him four, since my dear had two and I had two, so I had four breasts…”

Rosa Suclupe Bances

El Tetas is a project I started in 2022, where I delve into the past, the final stage of my maternal grandfather's life, and his subsequent death. I use a deteriorated family archive to highlight the psyche of memory and the emotional wound that marked my family, as a result of my grandfather's drunkenness, abuse, and abandonment.

I gather records I made of him in his later years, when, due to a blood clot, he lost both legs. From this event, he sought a form of redemption from his family. Finally, that forgiveness came after his death through writings dedicated to him by his wife and children. From the three temporal stages I describe—the family's past, the final stages of his life, and his death—I combine archival photographs with my own records to reconstruct a memory marked by feelings of violence and abandonment. It is a visual narrative that explores how my grandfather influenced his children and wife.

In the final stages and after his death, through my photographic record and my family's writings, I seek to express feelings of remorse and forgiveness toward José Prado. In this way, I not only conduct a visual exploration of "Daddy Four Tits," but also attempt to show the nuances of his figure in relation to my uncles, aunts, and grandmother.

El Tetas is an intimate journey through the core of my family, a way of portraying my grandfather with multiple nuances. It is a tribute from me to him that, despite his mistakes, becomes a letter from him to my loved ones. An attempt to understand who my grandfather was... who José Antonio Prado was... who "Daddy Four Tits" was.