SURFACE was born from a longing to dream after years of sleeplessness, nights spent awake, unable to rest. Even in familiar spaces, I felt unsettled, as if something beyond the walls was always about to happen. Closing my eyes brought no comfort; the weight of the day only deepened. I came to dread the night.
In seeking rest, I found myself resisting it. My body became a site of endurance, chasing imagined fragments of dreams to awaken a soul grown numb. In water, I could feel again: currents brushing my skin, air pressing against my lungs. To feel, I had to stop seeing. With eyes closed, images gave way to sound, then silence. In that silence, presence returned; every breath became everything. Floating and submerging, I met both stillness and weight, control and surrender. Wind, water, sand, and unseen creatures held me. I did not look; I only felt. There were no images then, only a profound dialogue with my body, and a quiet peace within.
The performances that emerged, durational acts carried out in deserted seas, rivers, and lakes were documented without intervention. From a distance, they may appear as a lone figure adrift on a mattress across vast waters. Yet their calm carries tension: the stillness holds the risk of yielding to the elements, where drowning was always a possibility. These are not illusions, but lived encounters with vulnerability.
My search carried me from New York to the Yucatán Peninsula, where I sought both rest and ancestral connection. Drawing from the legacies of magical realism, I turned to aerial drones to observe myself from above and to underwater photography to capture the stillness below. From the sky, I appear as a solitary body unmoored; beneath the surface, I am wrapped in water and fabric, weightless yet anchored in sensation. Unclothed and afloat, I surrender to the environment, dissolving into the landscape. In this state, I am neither from Mexico nor the United States. I am at home within myself. Present, and awake inside the dream.
Explore SURFACE’s complete series in four chapters: Ophelia, Alma, Landscape, and Alejandra.
