Elefante en la Habitación (Elephant in the room)

© María Fernanda Pérez - VHS of my parents’ wedding. I photographed the exact moment the tape glitched, as if the rupture had always been there. © María Fernanda Pérez - Photo of my parents, suggesting their separation and the fact that there was never any reconciliation. © María Fernanda Pérez - Image from the Elefante en la Habitación (Elephant in the room) photography project View all images ↓
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Elefante en la Habitación explores the normalization of paternal absence in Latin America. Through archives and self-portraiture, it investigates how silence and abandonment can shape our identity.

What happens when a father’s absence becomes the norm?
How can I carry feelings for someone who was never truly there?

The last time I saw my dad, I was 13. He promised he would change, that he would call more, but he never did. I buried the pain and convinced myself it didn’t affect me. It was easier that way, especially in a family where no one really talked about him. But over time, that silence became hard to ignore.

My father was present even in his absence: in objects, in silences, and in old photographs, appearing in fragments that never fully come together. One day, while going through an album, I saw a picture of him holding me as a baby. I stared at the image and thought, “How dare you.” How dare you hold me like that and then leave. He hugged me as a child, but never as an adult.

For years, I believed my father’s absence didn’t hurt. Photography, however, began to reveal what I had refused to recognize. The images I produced almost unconsciously began to expose a void I had carried for 25 years, making visible what had remained unspoken.

My practice combines the reconstruction of memory with the interplay between past and present through family archives, including VHS recordings and self-portraits. Adopting an autoethnographic approach, I begin from my personal history to explore a collective experience, mapping a common wound that exists across family narratives and social realities.

Elefante en la Habitación is not just a personal project, but a shared story. It invites reflection on the emotional inheritance of family rupture, and how silence can shape the way we understand relationships and absence over time.

© María Fernanda Pérez - VHS of my parents’ wedding. I photographed the exact moment the tape glitched, as if the rupture had always been there.
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VHS of my parents’ wedding. I photographed the exact moment the tape glitched, as if the rupture had always been there.

© María Fernanda Pérez - Photo of my parents, suggesting their separation and the fact that there was never any reconciliation.
i

Photo of my parents, suggesting their separation and the fact that there was never any reconciliation.

© María Fernanda Pérez - Image from the Elefante en la Habitación (Elephant in the room) photography project
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Letter I wrote to my father when I began to realize how much internal pain I had been carrying without knowing. I wrote it in Spanish, my native language. It was about the pain of his abandonment and my longing to recover the memories I lost. Later, I tore it up, because reading it brought up emotions I couldn’t fully understand.

© María Fernanda Pérez - Image from the Elefante en la Habitación (Elephant in the room) photography project
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My sister Ana, wearing my father’s old rally suit that he left behind at my grandparents’ house. I took this photo of my sister while she was visibly affected, as the suit fit her perfectly. It made us wonder how tall our father is, since we really don’t know anything about him.

© María Fernanda Pérez - Image from the Elefante en la Habitación (Elephant in the room) photography project
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One footprint heads one way, the other moves in the opposite direction. This image captures my relationship with my father: we walk separate paths. We’ve never aligned. Our steps never met.

© María Fernanda Pérez - Image from the Elefante en la Habitación (Elephant in the room) photography project
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My mother looks frightened. Sometimes I wonder if she already sensed something was wrong. She was very young when she married my father.

© María Fernanda Pérez - Image from the Elefante en la Habitación (Elephant in the room) photography project
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My dad’s face is covered in plastic, making him unrecognizable. The image captures the emotional tension I feel when looking at photos where he once showed affection toward me. It becomes hard to breathe when I encounter traces of a love that no longer exists.

© María Fernanda Pérez - Image from the Elefante en la Habitación (Elephant in the room) photography project
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From the family archive, a portrait of my father as a child. I like to think he was different back then, before becoming the man who would one day leave.

© María Fernanda Pérez - Image from the Elefante en la Habitación (Elephant in the room) photography project
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My parents’ first dance. Watching the VHS, I imagined my mother dancing with a ghost. My father almost disappears into the darkness of the image.

© María Fernanda Pérez - Image from the Elefante en la Habitación (Elephant in the room) photography project
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A self-portrait taken in my father’s childhood bedroom. For years, I only looked at his room from a distance. Photographing myself there felt like a small but profound victory.

© María Fernanda Pérez - I kept returning to my father’s face during the vows. There was something in his expression I couldn’t quite place.
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I kept returning to my father’s face during the vows. There was something in his expression I couldn’t quite place.

© María Fernanda Pérez - "Fin" - The end.
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"Fin" - The end.