CM22 Print Collecting Initiative!

Photolucida is so pleased to announce that we are working with Marisol Mendez this year on our Critical Mass Print Collecting Initiative! As part of this valued part of Critical Mass programming, all 200 Finalists will receive this special edition signed + numbered print titled Durazno, 2019, which is part of Marisol’s MADRE series.

Marisol uses the camera to study the tension between truth and fiction and the tight relationship between what a photograph creates and the (sur)real it comes from. Through her photographs she seeks to deconstruct hegemonic narratives and confront them with the friction of the heterogeneous. Marisol employs a broad range of visual language to tell a story – the mixture yields an experience similar to that of a mystical journey where the viewer is challenged to absorb and reflect on the links that emerge across the images. As a result, her work oscillates between candid and staged, naturalistic and mythical.

MADRE is a series that celebrates the diversity of Bolivian culture, focusing on the representation of women. The project takes a critical stance that questions both Marisol’s personal and national history, and well as the place that women have been granted in it. Her imagery includes indigenous and mestizo women, reinterpreted religious figures, retouched family photographs, rediscovered Andean traditions, and carefully staged portraits. The rich variety of images invites us to question the white, patriarchal cannon that prevails in the representation of women in Bolivia, alongside the presence of the class struggle and religious influence.

Marisol (Bolivia, b.1991) has exhibited in Europe, Argentina, and Bolivia, and her work has been published in The British Journal of Photography, Paper Journal, Balam and GUP Magazine. In 2021 she received the PHmuseum Photography Grant New Generation Award for MADRE and in 2020 she was one of Photolucida’s recipients of the Michael Reichmann Project grant. A terrific interview with Marisol can be found on British Journal of Photography/1854.

Photolucida thanks Open Doors Gallery (London) for the collaboration on releasing this print as a special edition. We also want to send a sincere thank you to our generous supporters Hahnemühle + Pro Photo Supply for continuing to make The Print Collecting Initiative possible as part of Critical Mass programming. We know it will be beautifully printed on Hahnemühle’s Fine Art PhotoRag® 308 Paper. Thank you, sponsors!