ONLY HAVE FAITH




I saw a mass grave with fifteen people. I had never seen human remains before. Never. I wish I never had. It’s burned into my memory. I remember that when I got close, butterflies flew out—the kind that come from corpses. Many butterflies. There was so much blood, so much fat, remains, clothes… and I clearly remember a full skeleton, as if it were asleep. It’s something I’ll carry forever. I remember it well, because yes, it gave me a bit of hope—maybe that person didn’t suffer as much. Like I told you, I would have preferred never to see that in my life. That’s what I would have wanted. But reality is different. When we find remains, we usually say a few words. We like to greet them: “Welcome back. Welcome, we receive you with care and appreciation.” Some mothers pray. Why do we say that? We say it because the last thing these people experienced in life was violence, hatred, resentment, darkness. And when that grave is opened again, and it’s us who are there, we want them to feel received—to see the light of El Solecito.




The Beginning of El Solecito: Resistance Through Unity

“My son was kidnapped in July 2013, and El Solecito was founded in May 2014. There were about seven or eight of us—mothers in Veracruz without a collective, each searching for our children. At that time, I was going through something terrible—a deep, overwhelming depression. By 2014, I had already knocked on every door. I was desperate, and I realized we needed to come together to form a united front. One mother alone doesn’t carry much weight—but a group? A group has strength. If we wanted to be heard, we had to speak out, take to the streets, and stand together in resistance.

When the Ayotzinapa tragedy happened in 2014, and we saw the mothers in Iguala out there searching the hills with nothing—just machetes, sticks—that opened our eyes. We said to ourselves: “We can do that too. But we’ll do it with tools. We’ll do it better prepared. We can build on what they started.” We went to Iguala to learn from the way they worked. We also attended workshops with different organizations in Mexico City.

We grew quickly—within two months we were already 40. Today, there are more than 300 of us.”

Port
Veracruz, Mexico 2017
Medium: Archival pigment print on fine art rag paper
Size: H 100 cm x  W 120 cm
Edition: 6 (2+AP)
Sunrise at the Mass grave’s entrance
Veracruz, Mexico 2018
Medium: RA-4 color darkroom print
Size: H 60 cm x  W 80 cm
Edition: 6 (2+AP)
Palm trees
Veracruz, Mexico 2018
Medium: RA-4 color darkroom print
Size: H 60 cm x  W 80 cm
Edition: 6 (2+AP)
Colinas de Santa Fe
Veracruz, Mexico 2018
Medium: RA-4 color darkroom print
Size: H 60 cm x  W 80 cm
Edition: 6 (2+AP)
Houses of Colinas de Santa Fe
Veracruz, Mexico 2018
Medium: RA-4 color darkroom print
Size: H 60 cm x  W 80 cm
Edition: 6 (2+AP)
Every day, I thank God. When I open my window and stand there, I always say a prayer—I always breathe in and feel the air, feel life. I have to feel life, because that’s what it was given to me for: to live it, to enjoy it. There were people who took all that joy from me, but they can’t take the sun, the air, the sky. They can’t take away the nature that God gave me. That, they cannot take.

Morning walk in Colinas
Veracruz, Mexico 2018
Medium: RA-4 color darkroom print
Size: H 60 cm x  W 80 cm
Edition: 6 (2+AP)
Vultures near the grave
Veracruz, Mexico 2018
Medium: RA-4 color darkroom print
Size: H 60 cm x  W 80 cm
Edition: 6 (2+AP)
Jeanette
Veracruz, Mexico 2018
Medium: RA-4 color darkroom print
Size: H 60 cm x  W 80 cm
Edition: 6 (2+AP)
Vulture
Veracruz, Mexico 2018
Medium: RA-4 color darkroom print
Size: H 80 cm x  W 60 cm
Edition: 6 (2+AP)
MIA
Veracruz, Mexico 2018
Medium: RA-4 color darkroom print
Size: H 60 cm x  W 40 cm
Edition: 6 (2+AP)
Perla
Veracruz, Mexico 2018
Medium: RA-4 color darkroom print
Size: H 60 cm x  W 80 cm
Edition: 6 (2+AP)
Palm trees on the way to the grave
Veracruz, Mexico 2017
Medium: RA-4 color darkroom print
Size: H 60 cm x  W 80 cm
Edition: 6 (2+AP)
Flower
Veracruz, Mexico 2017
Medium: RA-4 color darkroom print
Size: H 60 cm x  W 80 cm
Edition: 6 (2+AP)
Hope
Veracruz, Mexico 2018
Medium: RA-4 color darkroom print
Size: H 60 cm x  W 80 cm
Edition: 6 (2+AP)
Te amo
Veracruz, Mexico 2018
Medium: RA-4 color darkroom print
Size: H 60 cm x  W 80 cm
Edition: 6 (2+AP)
Palm trees on the way to the grave
Veracruz, Mexico 2017
Medium: RA-4 color darkroom print
Size: H 60 cm x  W 80 cm
Edition: 6 (2+AP)
Grave
Veracruz, Mexico 2017
Medium: RA-4 color darkroom print
Size: H 60 cm x  W 80 cm
Edition: 6 (2+AP)
Vultures near the grave
Veracruz, Mexico 2017
Medium: RA-4 color darkroom print
Size: H 60 cm x  W 80 cm
Edition: 6 (2+AP)









“Colinas is a place of terror and death which has converted into a sanctuary where many souls rest, or have rested, because we have already saved a lot of them. After all the suffering, death and terror, you finally see something good when you save someone from the ground. It is an oasis of hope in the world of despair.”


Mothers day demonstration
Veracruz, Mexico 2017
Medium: RA-4 color darkroom print
Size: H 60 cm x  W 80 cm
Edition: 6 (2+AP)