©Tania Barrientos

The Wound and the Mend

Tania Barrientos

2023 — Mexico

About this series

The Costa Chica of Guerrero is a geographical area where not only various indigenous groups such as Amuzgos, Tlapanecos and Mixtecos coexist, but also a high percentage of Afro-descendant population is sharing this region. It is also a territory characterized by intense political and social movements led by women of these ethnic groups, who began to organize in spaces specifically for women more than a decade ago and who now continue to strive to preserve the fruits of that struggle, facing many obstacles, especially due to customs and harmful practices rooted historically in the region, such as machismo, violence and corruption. In addition to situations of marginalization, poverty, social backwardness and discrimination.
Health, especially maternal health, and women’s political participation are the main subjects of this project. In this sense, I wanted to focus on portraits of indigenous traditional midwives and activists in the region, since they are the ones who are making visible issues such as underage pregnancies and maternal death, and the ability they have to self-manage their own health under an intercultural approach, as well as to actively participate in political decision-making on behalf of their communities.

©Tania Barrientos
©Tania Barrientos
©Tania Barrientos
©Tania Barrientos
©Tania Barrientos
©Tania Barrientos
©Tania Barrientos
©Tania Barrientos
©Tania Barrientos

Photographer: Tania Barrientos
Nationality: Mexican
Based in: Guererro, Mexico
Instagram: @tania_b.radilla

Through individual and collaborative long-term projects, Tania Barrientos explores social issues through the activation of individual and collective memory.
She studied  visual arts and lighting from EFTI and has been a 2018 National Fund for Culture and Arts (FONCA) scholarship recipient. She  received the Everydayprojects fund in 2022 and is member of Womanphotograph. She has exhibited her work in Mexico and abroad.
She currently resides in Guerrero, where she is from, to observe and document community feminist practices among indigenous and Afro-mestizo women in the Costa Chica region of Guerrero and Oaxaca, and their efforts to eradicate violence and have fair living conditions for them and their communities.