En Foco Photographer
Aquí en la Casa (Here at Home)
Adrian Martinez Chavez | Connecticut, United States
Photographer: Adrian Martinez Chavez
En Foco Photographer
Exhibit Title: Aquí en la Casa (Here at Home)
Location: Connecticut, United States
My father Wences in the kitchen of our family restaurant.
This project documents time spent with family during the COVID-19 pandemic when I found myself back at home at Casablanca, the house where my family first lived when they arrived in the United States from Mexico. During this time of uncertainty and anxiety, I turned to photography as an outlet, giving me a sense of purpose in recording our experience and telling the story of an immigrant small business owner working hard to pay his employees, feed his community and support his family and a mother and wife that works just as hard to maintain a home for her husband and kids.
My work focuses on Mexican communities living in the US, specifically, the dynamic and impermeable stigmas of Mexican culture through my family’s perspective. Their journey and life in America have been a massive inspiration. Within my practice, I make intimate photographs of daily activities at home and my family’s business, a Mexican restaurant my father opened after a decade working in the food-service industry. I explore thematic concepts of love, labor, machismo, identity, sexuality, brotherhood, and motherhood in Mexican American culture by opposing the iconographies. My upbringing between cultures is a significant part of my practice as I investigate ideas of assimilation or lack thereof.
adrianedmartinez@gmail.com
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