The title, I used to walk these streets with Abuela (2020), is taken from a story my mother often would tell me about how I would wander the streets in our neighborhood in Piribebuy when I was supposed to be at my grandmother's house. This body of work showcases images from my birth country of Paraguay juxtaposed with images of my current city in Madison. Through this process the work creates a dialogue between these two places; one being where I was born, and family still resides while the other being the first place I’ve lived alone away from family.
While working with 35mm film images that I made during my first visit back to Paraguay in 2017, it has allowed me to think about my connections to my family and heritage. This iteration of this project focuses on my connection to my grandmother and the neighborhood I lived in for the first three years of my life.
The images form a visual timeline of the journey between my neighborhood in Piribebuy, Paraguay to my neighborhood here in Madison, Wisconsin. A photo of myself and my grandmother in our respective kitchens serve as end-caps in the collection. These two photos are intentionally placed on the opposite ends of the timeline to visually place myself back in my childhood neighborhood and my grandmother here in Madison, as she still holds a strong presence in my life. Through this work, I am showing the parallels between these two places that have influenced my identity as a South American immigrant.
