Padre is a personal and political excavation of masculinity, approached through a feminist lens. Rooted in my family history and shaped by my Latin American heritage, the project interrogates the embedded structures of machismo that govern men’s behaviors and the emotional landscapes of those around them. Oscillating between social critique and self-inquiry, Padre traces a lineage of absence, tenderness, violence, and care, mapping the way masculine identity is inherited, performed, and, at times, unlearned.
The project began with a set of letters written by my grandfather to my father and uncle. These intimate correspondences unfold like generational echoes, revealing how the men in my family struggled to make sense of fatherhood, masculinity, and emotional responsibility. Through them, I became a witness to the contradictions at the heart of patriarchal identity: the longing for connection eclipsed by societal expectations of toughness and emotional restraint; the desire to nurture overtaken by the compulsion to dominate.
In Padre, staged portraits, archival interventions, and symbolic gestures challenge traditional representations of manhood. Hunting, both literal and metaphorical, operates as a central motif, evoking masculine drives toward conquest and control. This narrative is unsettled by images of vulnerability and the fragility of bodies and bonds. Scenes of decay and erosion echo the slow unravelling of hegemonic masculinity, whose ideals persist as ghostly remnants of a past that still haunts the present. By juxtaposing softness with brutality, presence with absence, Padre opens a space for reflection, asking not only what masculinity is, but what it could become.
