So my father allowed me to photograph him during his final years, establishing a complicity through photography that brought us together in our grief and in our imminent farewell. My intention is to release this project in the form of a photobook.

My other project is Profundidades, about when my father finally passed away. This work stems from a recurring dream in which I was overcome with panic before a tsunami, knowing there was nothing I could do to save myself and that all I could do was accept my fate. I understood that this dream was about the helplessness I felt in the face of my father’s imminent loss. After his death, I transformed this dream image into a metaphor for the profound grief I went through.

What did you learn (or unlearn) while working on them?
Through these projects I learned to find myself in what we avoid looking at—in what hurts or makes us uncomfortable but insists on staying in our depths. I learned to think about the body, memory, and bonds through the themes that have crossed my life, such as loss, grief, love, illness, and old age. I discovered the power that lies in fragility and the possibility of collective connection that emerges from the intimate.

What words, ideas or emotions were going through your head?
The strongest emotion I experienced was love through grief. I discovered that it is nothing more than another face of love and is proportional to it. Always waiting to happen, always inevitable. That inevitability obsessed me, and it’s what I tried to express through these projects. I think fear—but also resignation—was always present. That led me to see these works as a tribute to what was unavoidably approaching.

Were there any conversations, movies, music, or books that made their way into that work?
The poem by Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera, “For Then”. My father left me astonished when one day he recited it to me from memory. It speaks of the desire for a serene and beautiful death at sunset, at sea, before old age and time wreak their havoc. The following verses stayed with me:

To be already one with sea and sky,
And never hear the mourner’s plaintive cry.
Or prayerful sob; and if they question—why?
Majestic waves will offer no reply.

From these lines comes the title The Last Wave and the marine metaphor that accompanies both this project, my recurring dream, and the project Profundidades.

What's been the most difficult thing you've faced recently in your creative process?
A difficult aspect has been returning to The Last Wave. When my father died, it was suspended because the pain prevented me from continuing. Now, I think the most complex part will be bringing this project and Profundidades to a close. On one hand, both have been deeply healing and have made me feel close to my loved ones who passed away in recent years. On the other hand, it’s necessary to begin concluding them and ask myself: what comes next? Perhaps the greatest difficulty is precisely that—making room for projects that adapt to this new stage of my life.

What is your favorite restaurant and what do you recommend we order?
I really enjoy Asian food. One of my favorite restaurants is the Japanese spot Wan Wan Sakaba. I recommend the Tokusei Ramen.

If your life were a movie this month, what would it be called and who would write the soundtrack?
The title would be I Will Be My Own Mother, and the soundtrack would be by Daniel Hart.

Recommend one or more artists you follow who inspire you, and tell us what you like most about their work or their way of working.
I follow artists whose work stems from the intimate without turning personal experience into spectacle. I’m very interested in the work of Sophie Calle, for the way she works with loss, absence, and emotional relationships through very clear conceptual structures.

I’m also inspired by Rania Matar, especially for the relationship of trust she builds with the people she photographs and for her sensitive way of approaching intimacy and family bonds. I closely follow Ana Samoylova, for her approach to everyday life and domestic spaces, and for the emotional ambiguity that runs through her images. Finally, I’m interested in Christopher Anderson, both for the way he approaches themes like time and permanence through closeness, and for his interest in family life as a space of experience rather than representation.

Valeria Espitia Ducoing

Born in Mexico City in 1984, she is an art historian, photographer, and translator.

www.instagram.com/valeriaesdu/

La entrada Para entonces se publicó primero en ERRR MAGAZINE.