In the name of the Father
‘In the Name of the Father’ (Au nom du Père) explores a special tradition in Ecuador: the passing on of a father’s first name from generation to generation. In the four corners of Ecuador and across all social strata, dozens of families are photographed, always in their living rooms. Each time: the grandfather, the father and the grandson.
I’m interested in the traditions and social structures that shape our lives, and in the unspoken and out-of-focus things that define our societies. With ‘Au nom du Père’, I immersed myself in an Ecuadorian tradition that resonates across borders: the passing on of a father’s first name. By photographing these families in their living rooms, I wanted to capture the intimacy of these ‘popular dynasties’ and question the place of everyone in this family circle where women remain on the margins.
The use of black and white in ‘Au nom du Père’ is intended to minimise visual distractions and reinforce the effect of repetition, almost creating a sense of boredom. This aesthetic choice seeks to accentuate a deliberate monotony, evoking the immutability of these patriarchal structures, where everything seems frozen in time. Black and white helps to accentuate the feeling that behind the many differences, we are still looking at one and the same photograph, one and the same family. One and the same trinity. Ours? Mine?
All the photos are taken in the same place: the family living room. It’s a paradoxical place. In a way, it represents a public space within a private space. It’s where we receive people who come to visit us, and where we often carefully place what we want to show, in a carefully chosen order. It’s the place where you reveal yourself and show off. Every detail – from the picture on the wall to the trophies on display – carries a symbolic charge. The men are the central figures, ensuring family continuity, while the women are omnipresent by their absence. This discrepancy reinforces the central question: what does this heritage reveal about our humanity and its power relationships?
The families photographed are, in a way, co-authors of their photographs: within the rigid framework marked by the site, the families have all had the same freedom, which is to say, the same power.
The families photographed are, in a way, co-authors of their photographs: within the rigid framework of the venue, the families have all been given the same freedom, which is also the same obligation: to decide together how to position themselves in relation to each other, and how to dress, thus becoming the real actors in their photographs, the directors who reveal the way in which they want to show themselves, and what, ultimately, they want to be seen. Who is in the centre? Standing or sitting? In a suit or a T-shirt? What physical and symbolic distances? What gestures convey meaning? What expressions?
Beyond the borders of Ecuador, this series has universal resonance. It questions the weight of patriarchy in our societies, gendered expectations and the complex links between tradition and modernity. ‘In the Name of the Father’ is a question about the invisible legacies that continue to shape our identities and relationships. In making these portraits, I discovered much more than an Ecuadorian tradition: a reflection of the fundamental structures of our human societies, where power, gender and identity intersect and assert themselves, often to the detriment of those we don’t see.
This series of photographs uses the local and specific case of Ecuador to reveal a global mechanism: by documenting this Ecuadorian tradition, it is not just a local cultural particularity that I am seeking to reveal. It’s like a metaphor for patriarchal structures that, everywhere, intrude and hide themselves in details that are often invisible and insignificant – like the repetition of first names in this case.
I wanted to show men together, almost divine trinities, I wanted to show male power and the transmission of that male power. And women are obviously excluded. Out of frame. I wanted to show the omnipresence of men to underline the invisibility of women. This is a series about power and its roots. The power of men in its social organisation, which excludes women, starting with the family itself.
In Ecuador, as almost everywhere else in the world now, history and machismo have erased women. Machismo has therefore naturally erased women from these images, and I wanted to work on this out-of-frame, this glaring invisibility, this silencing. At the same time, the domestic space provides a paradox for these photos: women are physically absent from them and yet they condition the very existence of these photos; they are probably the ones who decorated these interiors and dressed these men; they are the ones who gave birth and yet we don’t show them. I remember this father saying to me: ‘What’s important is the seal of the leader, it’s the man, the Father’.
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‘The photographs have an open framing that allows us to travel through more than forty micro-worlds, all arranged, frozen and charged with meaning. Passing from one universe to another, we travel between looks that challenge us with their seriousness or their smile. Each group is in tune with its space, which is transformed into an extension of affect and coexistence. I explore every detail of the lounges and dining rooms: the frames, the decorations, the linen hung out, the hammocks, the big armchairs, the shiny or cement floors. I walk through the looks, the clothes, the closeness and the distance. I find myself in these houses and I am invaded by the trace of the invisible, by what is missing, by what is most glaringly absent: us, the women’.
Martina León
Ecuadorian photographer, on ‘In the name of the Father’.
