Faculty of Art

Photography

Ernesto Cabral de Luna

Seguimos Siendo Ayotzinapa

On cultural memory of the Latinx diaspora, work focuses on los desaparacidos (abducted people) through a case study of the 43 Mexican students from Ayotzinapa.

“Focusing on the forced disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Teacher's College in Guerrero, Mexico - this work deals with the relationship between identification photos and cultural memory. Consisting of 43 portraits printed onto thermal paper which are manipulated through various heat applications in order to obscure and attempt to remove their depictions. While the images are altered, their depictions are never truly removed - traces of their faces are left identifiable. Utilizing crumpled up receipt papers as the vessel for this work, a medium which is toxic in itself, comments on the toxicity and corruption of law enforcement in Mexico, the perishability of the image and memories, and the disposability of people in the eyes of the state. Not only are these depictions easily altered or damaged, but the thermal versions of these images are destined to fade after 5 years - for this project to exist in its physical form, memory of the students needs to be raised frequently.”