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Artistic investigation that examines family photographs and their function as a binary historical document that upholds heteroparental narratives imposed by patriarchal structures. These impositions establish an order that separates the masculinefrom the feminine and marginalizes identities that reject cisnormative biopolitical control.

Diverse identities have no visibility

in the action of the "family portrait".

I grew up in a family surrounded by women and lonely maternities. I grew up watching the absence of fatherhood. Men were less than women, but they decided and invoked blind strength. At 12, I began to recognize my diversity.

At 18, I experienced my first bereavement: my cousin Jose committed suicide. My relatives said that Joseito was homosexual and that is why he decided to take his own life. Corrective violence and binary violence often do not allow

diversity to inhabit the world. In 2013 my mother died and this marked a separation with my family. I moved away from that home that was both a refuge and a concentration camp. In 2022 I began to revisit the family archive,

I understood that I was not in it. I also could say that this person, who is apparently me, was an imposed representation. I began to visit other family archives of LGBTIQ+ people and my questions became certain. My story, and that of my chosen family, has something in common. The early years of our personal memories do not represent who we are. Every diverse gesture was censored. Most childhoods, trans, non-binary, queer and sex-diverse, we must raise ourselves alone, rethink the idea of home and fight for our rights. Is a work that intervenes in the family archive. This activation of queer memory proposes a photographic and political intervention. It is a collective project that requires the voice and perspective of the LGBTIQ+ community. The collaborative nature of this work allows each person to intervene in their own archives as a way to reclaim control over their history and generate a counter-archive that exposes the systemic violence suffered by LGBTIQ+ childhoods.

"Dead Family is an artistic research project on the function of the family archive. These albums often portray dominant, binary, heteronormative narratives and offer little space for other identities, rendering them invisible

throughout historical records. Perez’s series embraces, engages and encourages the plurality of the LGBTQIA+ community. Each participant was invited to make a creative intervention on their personal family album,

and imagine what an inclusive memory, reflecting their true identity, would feel like."    Samira Damato, Pride Photo 

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