The cumbias we heard up there

I met Deysi in September. I was on route for a commission and had to portray 50 women from indigenous origins in a little over a month. This search thrilled me, perhaps because most of the time I feel like I'm looking for something, but I don't know what it is. This project was going to be a break from myself.

That day I drove in my small rental car for hours lost in the highlands. I felt deep happiness, then anxiety, fear, optimism, and resignation. I went through all the mental states until it began to get dark, and I was overcome with terror: I had been lost for so long in a maze of paths that it was impossible to even think of going back. Finding Deysi became my only option. Tired and trying not to despair, I retraced my steps once more, towards the last detour I had taken. In the distance, almost imperceptible on a hill, I saw a white dot that looked like a jeep to me. The white dot was getting closer as I approached it. We met in a dry riverbed. "Deysi!" We hugged each other for several minutes, on the verge of tears, and I told her "I'm Fernanda, I've been looking for you for a long time."

This ongoing project is an inner journey through each other. It is an open question: How to undertake the search for things that, in a certain way, have to do with displacing the frontiers of one's own being into unknown territories, with becoming another person?