honorable mention
Sylvia de Swaan united states
title
The Mexico Years
The first time I went to the ranch was with my soon to be husband, in 1963. Stepping into that world I felt as though I’d arrived at the realm of “magic realism,” long before that phrase was coined. Mesmerizing tales and legends told by my soon to be sister-in-law dated back to the times of the Mexican revolution and before. She had trunks of old photographs and documentation tracing her lineage back to indigenous tribes on one side and colonial Spaniards, on the other - a true daughter of the Mestizo culture.
I still go back every few years, splitting my time between the ranch in Veracruz, and Mexico City where I used to live. On my last two visits I began a series of photos that aim to explore the complexities of Mexican identity, the strata of history that coexist in the present, and the daily lives of ordinary people living alongside the stress of the drug wars.
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entry description
I lived in Mxico at a formative stage of my life (1962-73) – as a young painter in quest of adventure, a newlywed, a mother, an instructor at the the School of Architecture at the University of Mexico, as an apprentice photographer, an exhibiting artist and an active participant Mexico City’s 1960s culture. I have family-in-law by my first husband, some who live in Mexico City and others at a ranch in the north of Veracruz.The first time I went to the ranch was with my soon to be husband, in 1963. Stepping into that world I felt as though I’d arrived at the realm of “magic realism,” long before that phrase was coined. Mesmerizing tales and legends told by my soon to be sister-in-law dated back to the times of the Mexican revolution and before. She had trunks of old photographs and documentation tracing her lineage back to indigenous tribes on one side and colonial Spaniards, on the other - a true daughter of the Mestizo culture.
I still go back every few years, splitting my time between the ranch in Veracruz, and Mexico City where I used to live. On my last two visits I began a series of photos that aim to explore the complexities of Mexican identity, the strata of history that coexist in the present, and the daily lives of ordinary people living alongside the stress of the drug wars.
about the photographer
I'm an art and documentary photographer who works on long term personal projects about identity, memory, personal history, displacement and war. I travel frequently to Eastern Europe and Mexico exploring a terrain in earlier stages of my life. My work has been awarded grants, fellowships and prizes from Art Matters, Inc., Aaron Siskind Foundation, Light Work, Arts Link, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Austrian Ministry of Culture, New York Foundation for the Arts, the Society for Photographic Education and Px3, among others. My photographs have been exhibited and published nationally and internationally.back to gallery