Rosas y Espinas meditates on my childhood memory, spirituality, and the role women take on as cultural preservers. Growing up in a Latino Baptist church, my sense of identity was shaped by scripture, traditions, and the soft strength of my mother. These experiences stirred curiosities within me but also taught me how deeply tradition can live in the body and settle into memory. Through reflections on moments where faith and tradition blur into performance, I attempt to understand the tension between what is inherited and what is personally experienced.
This work began with my mother’s photo archive that traces our family’s journey from El Salvador to the present. As I sift through them, I understand how much of who I am has been passed down through gestures and religious symbolism. The photographs I make are a way of speaking back, of asking questions, of honoring what I’ve been given while searching for what is my own. Listening to my inner dialogue when titling, they weave in and out between Spanish and English like many who are raised bilinguals experience.