This project is the reflection of a process of cultural transition, informed by my experience of living in the United States as a Mexican female student for the past four years.  Leaving the context of my native country has caused me to question the existence of stable, hermetic and unchangeable identities, whether cultural, sexual, racial or personal.  My constant state of transition over the past four years—as I have moved from New York to Mexico and back again—has allowed me to perceive how my own identity has continually shifted according to different cultural and social backdrops. These experiences have led me to become interested in exploring the performative nature of identity, where the Self can be understood as a mosaic of accumulated everyday performances. 

Specifically, this series of self-portraits examines the identity politics of being an-Other Mexican female in the United States, as I attempt to position myself within tropes that have historically been used to describe ethnic, sexual, racial and cultural Others.  I borrow from cultural myths, objects and images of contemporary American and Mexican popular cultures, to recreate myself in the photographic image both as I am seen and as I see myself.  The resulting photographs are images of a fragmented and hybrid Self undergoing a process of constant reconfiguration. Thus, these images are performances of identity through theatricality, that is to say, the use of costume, mask, body paint and props, among other elements. 

In Spanish, the word for mask, máscara, literally means, “more face.”  Using this literal definition as a point of departure, I focus on how masks and costumes can reveal, rather than conceal, the possibilities of the contingent, relational and ever changing nature of identity.  At the same time, I draw a parallel between the techniques of costuming and photography.  Like masks, photographs can hide certain truths, while revealing others. In this sense, I see photography as a potential performative space, within which I can approach theatricality—mask, costume and performance—as an integral component of the  identified Self.