I have learned that the eye is crippled when the mind thinks it has nothing to give. That it turns on itself, loses its hope to longing and too often betrays its right to articulate its presence. Amidst such damage, vision is impaired and the necessity to simply imagine is injured and made finite.
Over the years I have followed these words which have held me close and sustained my trust. For now, they reflect in the imagery of an older man, one who cannot look away from the misery of others by infection and ignorance. They interpret an acknowledgment of those who suffer deep in the fear of a pandemic allowed to decimate others. They illustrate a separation of innocence from those children who will never be the same incarcerated in a Zero Tolerance Nation. They illustrate the illogical borders that separate those who need each other most. For this these photographs commit an act of desperation by pronouncing as best I can, those parameters that lead to our shame, that which is complicit to the absence of empathy.
Every struggle has the power of affording clarity, thus meaning is best used when it helps others to find their own. It is my intention to interpret these images as an alternative form of documentary photography that can only respond to the insanity of our time and those inequalities balanced on the backs of others. They cross the border of symbology by integrating the ephemeral roles we play in life as life plays in us.
Don Gregorio Antón
