Luciérnagas: an intimate work between absence, memory, and hope.
In many ways, Luciérnagas is a ritual. An attempt to exorcise unresolved trauma in the spectral landscape of Guerrero, the native land of Magnum photographer Yael Martínez in Mexico. The project began in 2013, after three members of his family disappeared. This tragedy opened an investigation into the pervasive violence of organized crime in the region, into the way it seeps into daily life and profoundly alters the spirit of these places. Martínez then spent time with other families facing the disappearance of a loved one. From these encounters emerged bonds that go beyond his personal story, extending across borders to Honduras, Brazil, and the United States, forming a constellation of experiences marked by endemic violence. Throughout the work, the images are threaded with fragments from a journal, written in the field. In them, Martínez records the emotions that inhabit him in the face of loss, and accompanies the mourning process of families who were never given the possibility of grieving. In Luciérnagas, death is never shown, but its presence permeates every image, lurking in the shadows. Each photograph bears the painful trace of calculated violence, carried out unseen and undetected, leaving behind the immense void of a disappeared person. And yet, a form of hope persists and runs through the entire body of work. Giving form to the invisible: Between 2019 and 2023, Martínez began a new exploration of his images: he pierced the prints and backlit them. Beams of light then burst from the photographs, unfolding into free forms that pierce the darkness. In this gesture, light is transformed through contact with the scenes represented, giving rise to a kind of alchemy in which repair, resilience, and the possibility of a future emerge, fragilely. It is within this dialogue between reality and imagination that Luciérnagas renews the way we look at violence in Latin America. Here, emotions are not merely suggested; they are expressed. Through ordinary figures who guide us, the work restores the full humanity of those living in these wounded territories, while revealing the intimate cost of violence. Brought together in book form for the first time, this work proposes a new way of representing disappearances linked to organized crime and state violence: a vision in which light illuminates the darkness, like a firefly leading us toward other possibilities. Born in Guerrero in 1984, Yael Martínez creates works that address communities torn apart in his native Mexico. He often uses a symbolic language to evoke the feeling of emptiness, absence, and suffering endured by people affected by the state and organized crime. He joined Magnum Photos as a full member in 2024.
Source: paris.fr — photo: Yael Martinez/Magnum Photos