Ya no la pudo lavar

Between 2010 and 2016, I removed all the corpses that I found published in the local newspaper P.M., in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. I erased hundreds of bodies with a rubber eraser. I approached the newspaper from its name, understanding it as a “Post Mortem” space.

The periods of extreme violence that the city experienced positioned it among the most violent in the world, marked by the large number of homicides committed mainly in its streets. We were so used to seeing these bodies that it seemed normal to us. What was supposed to be in the image no longer appeared; the ghostly space that was left gave us a chance to think about what was happening. The softness of the gum, the duration of the erasing process and its ritual connotations radically confronted the immediacy and brutality of these deaths.

These new images sought to grant an opportunity for mourning, a last image, a more dignified form of death.