I Only Reside In My Skin
I left my homeland of El Salvador at the age of 8 to escape a country in war. My family and I emigrated to the United States where we were classified as “illegal aliens”, “immigrants” and later on as “refugees”. A country where I felt neither wanted nor accepted. However, this was my home now, so I had no choice but to adapt. As an adult I traveled back to my homeland, and realized that the home I had left behind no longer existed, nor could I exist there. I could not accept this country where I am still considered foreign as my home either. Which side could I call home then? In my last series of photographs, I basically ‘found myself’ in nature and I discovered that Earth is my Mother, and that my Skin is my Land.
During this residency, I will make a new series of work in which I create a newfound land, the only one that I can call home and which will be composed of elements from nature composed with parts of my skin. I plan to photograph my body to piece together my story superimposing it with different images and landscapes. As the lines between place of birth, place of residence, and place of allegiance become increasingly blurred, I propose a different way of thinking about our Motherland. I Only Reside In My Skin is an appropriation of my body as my land and one which I can take with me no matter which country I reside in, and in which I can never feel foreign.
