WELCOME TO INTIPUCA CITY
Welcome to Intipucá City is a transmedia documentary project based on photography about Salvadoran migration and its relationship with the United States, which focuses on the place that is left behind. It tells the psychological and social complexities of migration between El Salvador and the United States, from 1968 to the present, through the story of a small, unique but universal city: Intipucá, in southern El Salvador. Intipucá City is neither here nor there: it is in both places at the same time.
Since the departure of Silfredo Chavez, (re)known as the first migrant, going to the United States from this city of El Salvador became a custom, a part of the history and life of the people and their families. The United States became something close and present, although geographically distant.
Family (dis)unity began to draw a transnational territory, the absences of relatives contrasted with the omnipresence of American-style mansions awaiting a possible return. The stone becomes the way to remain linked to the homeland when the body cannot do it. Intipucá is a territory in tension, an identity that was sown in a faraway place. Families were transformed into jigsaw puzzles, and the city became a town of old people and teenagers.
Through photography in both cities (digital, instant and analogical), drawings, texts, etc., We seek to understand the identity disrupted by an economic and social need to leave, as well as the impact of migration on a village and its inhabitants, reconfiguring the notion of links with the territory and with the family. We also invited participants on both sides, to draw handmade family trees where red represents relatives settled in the US, while blue illustrates those who live in Intipucá today.
The project was born in 2017 with the desire to work collectively. Koral Carballo, Mexican photographer, Anita Pouchard Serra, French-Argentine photographer and Jessica Ávalos, Salvadoran journalist, all closely linked to the topic of migration through their family and personal stories, start the project thanks to the ADELANTE grant from the International Women's Media Foundations. To date, they have been able to continue the project thanks to the MOVING WALLS 25 grant from Open Society Foundations, the IWMF ADELANTE grant the We Women grant from Photoville and Women Photograph, and the YES contemporary program grant for artists in El Salvador.
Thinking about the diaspora and how it impacts intimate life. We invite the protagonists to draw their family tree, using red ink to write the names of those who left and blue ink to write the names of those who stayed.
Analogic doble exposure between El Salvador and EEUU
Sulma Escobar was four years old when her mother migrated. She has not seen her since. Sulma has a beauty salon in downtown Intipucá. She says she does not aspire to live in another country. It is not her goal. She wants to stay and grow her business. “I want to go to the United States to meet my mother, but not to stay because I want to generate more jobs here,” she says.
Blanca Neris Chavez's American dream was to come to the United States to “work and make money”. For years her life was just that: work, work and more work. She says that she suffered discrimination, and that when she wanted to return, everyone told her that she would regret it. “I told them that I was coming back, even if it was just to sell tortillas, but to my land, where I was going to be my employer. Because I felt that in the United States I was never going to develop,” she says from Intipucá, where a beach hotel was built to provide jobs for young people.
Analogic doble exposure between El Salvador and EEUU
There is an American dream, but there are also other dreams. The journey, by land, by plane, with or without papers, does not extinguish anyone's dream. Welcome to Intipucá City is a project that narrates the dreams of those who left, as well as those who stayed. In a municipality where everyone leaves, staying is also an option.
The project has been desplayed in diferent places through community actions and exhibitions.
In Open Society Foundations in NYC and in different locations with the support of We Women and IWMF
Community exhibitions.
ONLINE TALKS ABOUT THE PROJECT
