Raquel Trejo, Mother (ART & CONCEPTUAL 2025)

Mother is my ongoing search into the act of mothering, not as a fixed identity, but as a verb. A movement. A practice. This series explores the emotional terrain of mothering in all its complexity: the heartbreak, the surrender, the joy, and the moments of clarity that arrive unexpectedly. It is not a portrayal of idealised motherhood, but an examination of the messy, intimate, and transformative process of becoming, and unbecoming, through care. At its core, Mother is an inward journey. A quiet, introspective passage into self-discovery. The landscapes in these images reflect that inner world: strange, disorienting, and haunting, yet also sacred, enchanted, and alive with memory, instinct, and myth. Shot on analog film while freediving, the series embraces impermanence and erosion, both thematically and materially. The ocean resists clarity. It blurs edges, softens figures, and distorts form. Each image emerges through a collaboration between salt, light, and movement, reflecting how caregiving erodes and reshapes the boundaries of selfhood. These photographs are not precise records, but gestures. Emotional truths are briefly held, then dissolved and remade. Scratches, fog, and accidental marks are not flaws; they are collaborators. They echo the instability and tenderness of mothering: fractured, ephemeral, and deeply felt. As a Mexican Indigenous woman, my practice offers a contemporary, decolonial perspective on ocean conservation and aesthetics. Working with a broken Nikonos II, a camera once used for war reporting and colonial marine exploration, reclaim this object as a vessel for care, intimacy, and myth-making. Its damage is intentional: to question the legacy of tools designed for extraction, and to honour what is fragile, altered, or incomplete. My underwater analog photographs embrace chance, decay, and material instability, allowing the ocean to shape each image in collaboration. These emotional imprints reflect my connection to water as a living entity, and to memory as something fluid, sacred, and shifting. I hold deep respect for figures like Jacques Cousteau and Jacques Mayol, whose curiosity shaped how we see the sea. My work continues that lineage, but through a different lens: one that does not seek mastery over nature, but honours erosion, vulnerability, and becoming. This is my way of listening to water and remembering who we are beneath the surface.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.