si el sol llegara a oscurecer, y no brille más

Intimate story that delves into spirituality by knowing my grandma, who fought a terminal illness with her unwavering faith alone, and lost. Endearing, open, evocative narrative that engages with faith, loss, family ties, and acceptance.

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I feel that talking about this story requires the confidence and warmth of narration, so here goes:

Julia was my maternal grandmother.

She was very believing. A christian,

like everyone in my family.

'

Julia was the emotional center of our family.

The nucleus,

the sun we orbited.

'

One day, she felt bad.

Soon, we found out that she was sick. 

Of an aggressive cancer.

There were mixed feelings, complex situations, hard conversations.

'

At a certain point, she decided not to take conventional treatment,

but to take complete refuge in her faith.

Julia believed. She believed firmly

and remained persistent in her faith until the end, 

that she received singing her favorite song, which says:

'

si el sol llegara a oscurecer, y no brille más 

yo igual confío en el Señor, no me va a fallar

(If the sun gets dark and doesn't shine anymore,

I still trust in the Lord, he will not fail me)

'

Her death was complex for all of us who were close to her.

For me, at the beginning, it was a feeling of absurdity,

a series of ideological questions and emotional conflicts,

all of them unanswered.

'

Some time later I received a notebook that Julia wrote during the months she was sick, whose reading unleashed the visual exploration that laid the foundations for this work.

That is why this work is in itself an approach to the intimacy of a family story, a very close narration that is shared with great care, almost whispering.

So, making use of visual resources such as the family photographic archive; pieces of writing from my grandmother's last diary; documentation of its congregation and nature photographs, a visual narrative is created, one that addresses loss and acceptance while offering an intimate approach to the Christian faith, its vicissitudes and the way of thinking of its believers: sometimes complex and radical, but other times beautiful and hopeful. 

Through these images I propose the confrontation with the feeling of absurdity that invaded me when I saw my grandmother's decision, but also with those small episodes full of hope that appeared in the middle. This conjunction has led to the understanding that it was not just an act of faith, but an act of love. Every act of faith is, on some level, an act of love.

As someone raised in a strongly believing family, I invite you to look closer. To empty your mind from any preconceived idea about faith and let this story permeate you. Then, when inside this little and intimate universe, symbols drawn from the experience and vision of my family and their congregation will appear and seek to resonate universally with diverse beliefs and spiritualities. In this sense, a realistic view of the subject is given, but not one that acts as a typographical mirror of what happens, but as an alchemy that reveals its causes, its drivers, the reasons that lead people to give themselves to faith, to live it and die it, as my grandmother did.

Formally, images of this proposal are arranged within frames like those of the installation shots, which are traditionally used in my country in the context of the imaginary of portraits and family memory. They are planned to be mounted in a space that conveys the endearing, intimate and visceral nature of the story.

In the same way, and as a form of materiality that invites you to stop and look even more closely, the inclusion of an artisanal, handmade photobook in the exhibition is proposed, the dummy of which can be reviewed at this link.