By Koral Carballo
Donde no puedas verme (Where Your Gaze Can’t Reach Me) by Saraí Ojeda.
If the family album could be deconstructed, Saraí has done it in her work Donde no puedas verme (Where Your Gaze Can’t Reach Me).
In Mexican society, we have romanticized the family album—full of events and happy moments—that constructs narratives blinded by this fictitious sense of happiness that we cling to in a complex country, where emotional and familial crisis is commonplace. This is precisely where Saraí’s eyes and hands have constructed a narrative that pulls back the curtain, hiding the violence within the family.
Every element and decision made by the artist tells the story of a family of women that upholds patriarchy and that systematically mistreats the women in their own lineage. Saraí becomes her great-grandmother through self-portraiture, wearing her clothes; she photographs her house through light and shadow, and intervenes in her family album—erasing, crossing out her own face—creating an archive: a personal yet contemporary document that resonates with the stories of thousands of Mexicans who remain silent about the violence they endure within the intimacy of their homes.
Learn more about Saraí Ojeda here.
Explore Koral’s Digital Residency here.
Visit Koral’s website here.
