The Mona Lisa of Souls (Series 2021-2025)
This series is part of a body of work (Âmes en Chaîne 2021-2025) created during visits to UdeC’s open campus in the city of Concepción, which captures portraits of the diversity of people moving around in different situations. Each human being, with their differences and particular sensibilities, has an inner soul that photography allows us to imagine what it looks like, or rather, what it is and who it belongs to. Portrait n°1 is the image of a young Muslim immigrant girl, who becomes the Mona Lisa that initiates the series and thus enables a scenario of content, identifying singularities of gaze, states of mind, gender diversity, cultural differences, immigration, etc., at a given moment, like a brief period of meditation for photography. The documentary and authorial recording is part of a continuous movement through the place and at different times of the year, leaving its mark on the weather and climate typical of the Biobío region (Chilí), which tends towards rather grey, misty and contrasting days. The series is extensive and is beginning to take on a variety of forms (self-published photo book, exhibition, portfolio and texts). But above all, it marks the beginning of a personal project of recording and working closely with people, from a place where social differences are valued, challenging stereotypes of beauty and seeking to contribute to the new demographics emerging as a result of the diversity of our context.
It is a new society that is taking shape and beginning to accept a wider cultural range of lifestyles and their interrelationships. It is undoubtedly a slow process that requires time to deepen, on the one hand accepting differences and on the other, using the medium as a diary of small, unique and very singular photographic moments to tell a story beyond the body, but rather of souls.
