THE TURNING POINT
Today Argentina represents the hope and the fear of a continent, after the congress approved the abortion bill in december 2020.
Started decades ago, The movement for a legal abortion never stop to grow, especially in the last years, and despite a still strong division and “grieta” in the society, changes and switchs happened in many families, territories and lives.
Through a photographic story and a written chronicle, the project articulates a set of profiles and life stories of women of all ages and backgrounds, in the provinces of Neuquen, Cordoba and Tucuman, focusing on their processes of change, individual and collective, their emancipation to become supporters at different levels of the legalization of abortion. The idea is to understand what were the turning points for them, Facts, encounters, words that marked a before and an after, and how these women became hinges in their territories and environments.
This project was inspired by the impact hat it generated me to hear in 2018 and 2020, deputies and senators who by supporting the bill broke with their environment, whether political, religious, territorial or cultural and the curiosity to know what had been their path, their process to cross, in spite of everything, to the other side.
Collecting the voices and paths of these women is a way to speak about this urgent topic to a broader audience and another part of the society, the one that is immersed in doubts and contradictions around the legalization. A story to share with our aunts, cousins, mothers and take the discussion to another level, the one of the personal process of many women with whom we can identify thinking that more than a division, there is a possible movement between both sides through slow processes of deconstruction and construction.
With the support of the IWMF
Maria Ines Farias, 52 years old in the natural reserve and mapuche Curruhuinca in San Martin de los Andes.Teacher and then teacher trainer, she is retired since early 2021. Since 2012 she has participated in "Feminist Rescuers" ( Socorristas en red), an activist network that accompanies women in their desire for abortion.
STORY 1
Maria Ines Farias, San Martin de Los Andes
1968 resuena en la memoria colectiva como evocación de los aires de libertad y rebelión que batieron en varios países, de la Primavera de Praga al Mayo Francés. Era un espíritu de cambio lejano del contexto en que nació ese año María Inés Farías, en el seno de una familia religiosa y tradicional de Tucumán, norte de Argentina, poco antes del inicio de la dictadura militar en 1976.
Sin embargo, la rebelión, la búsqueda por romper un orden impuesto poco a poco llegarían a su vida, hasta convertirla en una reconocida militante por el derecho al aborto y su legalización en la Patagonia argentina.
San Martin de los Andes, a small town of 45,000 inhabitants in the heart of the mountains and lakes of the province of Neuquen, Patagonia. Maria Ines, a native of Tucuman in northern Argentina and from a conservative evangelical family, arrived in this city in 1999, following the transfer of her doctor husband.
The promise of the wife
For Maria Ines, every opportunity is good to talk about abortion and women's rights. The latest occasion was her visit to the florist to buy this plant, where she exchanged with the young saleswoman about the work of "Socorristas en red".
Portrait of Maria Ines, with her hair blowing in the wind at the viewpoint of San Martin de los Andes. Her hair is part of her emancipation and freedom, after a childhood spent straightening it, to look more European and white according to her mother, of German origin, while her father is indigenous.
Follow the example
The two books that marked a before and after in the life of Maria Ines, and her emancipation, and that she still keeps today in her library.
The butterfly. A tattoo on the right shoulder, but a symbol for María Ines. A process of intense transformation before hatching. Between joy and pain. The pink wig is another strong symbol, the one of the "Socorristas en red" all over Argentina, recognizable from afar in all feminist demonstrations.
Collage from archival images selected with Maria Ines and printed in cianotype.(The prints have been possible thanks to the help and expertise of Sofia Tolosa Orquera)
A dinner at Maria-Ines' house, to celebrate her retirement. Maria Ines, as a teacher trainer and feminist, is surrounded by young women from all walks of life. Some of them have a similar story to hers, a strict family and religious upbringing, and have been inspired by their elder sister and her journey
"Nowadays, girls don't hesitate to jump into the water", says Maria Ines, on the banks of the lake. Figuratively and literally. On the shores of Lake Lacar, any promontory is transformed into a diving board, which is no longer the privilege of daring boys.
When she began accompanying women in their desire to have an abortion in 2012, she wrote down their names, ages and dates on a loose leaf, not imagining that it would grow and fill pages and pages of future notebooks, like this one. The "Socorristas en red" have produced numerous statistics since their inception that shed light on the number of women having abortions by region, their profiles, their situations, contradicting the opposition that considers abortion as sporadic and a non-issue.
Portrait of Maria-Ines, at night in the streets of San Martin de los Andes. "I don't need to have the green scarf on me". The green scarf is the symbol of the campaign for the legalization of abortion that every activist in Argentina wears. On the bag, in the hair, around the wrist, the ways of wearing it are numerous. Maria-Ines doesn't wear it because here in this small town, everyone knows who she is, what she thinks, and if a woman has a problem, she can come to her.
One of the mountains around Lake Lacar. These trees are a symbolic expression of this green tide, which has not stopped growing in the most remote Argentine territories.
Maria-Ines looks through the window of a shuttle on Lake Lacar.
Collage from archival images selected with Maria Ines and printed in cianotype. (The prints have been possible thanks to the help and expertise of Sofia Tolosa Orquera)