Mixed Message

This project reframes my relationship to Miami, where I was born and raised, and implicates me as inextricable from the chaos and magic that emanates from its limestone bed.

This project reframes my relationship to Miami, where I was born and raised, and implicates me as inextricable from the chaos and magic that emanates from its limestone bed.

Having been raised at the intersection of three distinct cultures: Cuban, Argentinian, and that of Miami itself, I’ve battled with ownership of any one. I had two different Spanish speaking accents, and complicated by society's misunderstanding of perceived identity, I fell into nowhere. As a teenager, what I believed Miami to be was a place where what one didn’t have seemed to be the most important thing to everyone else. This often manifested in material goods, physical obsessions and money. I never bought in, which led to a deep seeded rejection of the only place I was grounded in, the only place I knew. 

For many years, now in a new home city in a different state, the idea of home has continuously gnawed at me, and Mixed Message has been my avenue for exploration–a way to re-root, re-discover, and ultimately understand for the first time what I was unable to see earlier. 

Miami, a tapestry of -isms, and cultural anomalies, shaped me. In the last 8 years photographing my world, I have still mostly rejected Miami. From within the walls of my childhood home and beyond, the camera has facilitated a paradigm shift. I’ve searched for what feels mysterious and undefined, yet glows with certainty. Limestone beneath my feet I remain unsure whether I will surrender to the earth, or it will take me, sight unseen.