Translations:Marta María Pérez/8/en

Black and white photography is crucial in Marta María Pérez's work. In some of her projects, text written on the photographs points to the effective value of language in the Santeria tradition and is not simply a description or translation of the image. These images study the relationship between body and language, taking the artist's own body as a center for the compositions and building self-portraits through which she embodies other people whose religious and cultural experiences she makes visible.

In her approach to the popular cults of Cuba, Peréz has integrated exhaustive documentation with a proximity to the people who practice such rites. The results reflect her observations, but also her own experiences as carrier of her country's traditions. Her works refer to women's experience as desiring beings, who embody pain and social mandates in their role as the reproducers of life. As regards Santeria, there are also reflections on ritual, magic, superstition, and death as organizing elements in the world of the living.

In her video works, her body becomes an offering. This medium has allowed her to move from the gaze of the past, which comes across in her photographs, to visions of the present and future that, in any case, continue and arise from some of her photographic work.