Touchstone
(2023 - ongoing)
In Southeastern Jalisco, the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range cradles a small ranching town, the birthplace of my grandmother. All of the precious metals were carried from the land during Spanish conquest in the 1500s, but the town still proudly retains “gold” in its name. Although the coat of arms standing at Santa María del Oro’s entrance was torn down in 2018, Spanish cultural pressure endures, fused with the Mexican landscape and producing an everyday surrealism.Touchstone is a project about the malleability of identity, examining the adaptation of the townspeople to the difficult mountain landscape. It also recounts my own search for identity. Being guided through ancestrally significant lands, I questioned how my identity had been shaped by the history of my ancestors in Santa María del Oro. Continually returning to these areas was an act of slowly piecing together the fragments of my family’s history. More than a photographic documentation, Touchstone seeks to deepen a connection to distant family members and a town that has shaped my family’s identity for generations.