Quetzal Maucci London, United Kingdom

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Born in San Francisco, Quetzal Maucci is an Argentinian and Peruvian American photographer based in London and part of Women Photograph. She is currently studying for her Master’s in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at London College of Communication. Recently, she won the Open Walls 2020 exhibition for her work on Children of Immigrants.

Within my work, I explore issues surrounding identity, immigration, and state violence. My culture and background are in everything I do. My roots run deeply and spread across many lands. I grew up with two mothers and throughout my childhood they proudly taught me about their South American cultures. I cannot express how extraordinary they are for raising me as hard-working parents who also found time to fight back for immigrant, women and, LGBTQI+ rights. My mother’s would bring me to marches and demonstrations which opened my eyes at an early age to social and economic issues. They both taught me to continuously challenge my views, to follow my heart, and cultivate my mind. These critical moments in my life fueled my own interests in fighting back against discrimination through my work and my voice. I am still learning about myself and my roots every day. As I move and experience more, the labels and definitions I apply to myself transform. Every project I create is influenced by my childhood, by my community, by society, and by the mothers of my mothers and their mothers. And their continuous support motivates me throughout my life.

My personal project, We Are More Than Numbers: Portraits of Children of Immigrants, was published in The New York Times, which explored and interviewed the community of children of immigrants in the United States. As a child of immigrants, I was interested in discovering my definition of home, confronting the negative stereotypes attached to immigration, and exploring the state of being in-between cultures. From these experiences, I became passionate about long-term visual storytelling.

For Children of Immigrants, I began by photographing friends who were interested in working with me and then it quickly expanded into a wider community. In terms of my approach to photographing, I believe the way we photograph, edit, present, and share our work is increasingly more crucial. Traditional photojournalism favors the in and out, distant approach of quickly documenting a story. I understand and sympathize more with projects that are produced in a collaborative and long-form documentary approach. A long-form approach to photographing slows the process down creating time and space for me to honestly connect with people or an issue over months or years of working together.

I believe collaborators should take part in the decision-making process about where a project goes, how it unfolds, and so on. As photographers, we need to always begin a project by unpacking extremely important questions revolving why we are interested in a certain project, what the collaborators think in terms of the final production, who we are in regards to the work, what the risks may be in creating the project, and what the collaborators obtain from working with us. I also think it is vital to approach any project with the idea that everyone has something to bring to the table. An essential book about collaboration that I recently read is called Education for Socially Engaged Art by Pablo Helguera. He addresses how important communication is in any project, “Conversation is the centre of sociality, of collective understanding and organization. Organized talks allow people to engage with others, create community, learn together, or simply share experiences without going any farther.” Essentially, my work stems from conversations and connection.

The history of western photojournalism is deeply rooted in racist and colonialist roots. It grew out of an environment that favoured othering and exoticizing. These motives are still alive today and need to change. Within photography, we hear this line over and over: “I am giving a voice to the voiceless.” I believe this idea is an issue. The participants in my project have voices. I am not giving my subject a voice, rather I am collaborating with individuals to create work in order to continue tackling issues that I believe need to be dismantled. The words we utilize and the way our creative processes unfold affects the participants in the project, influences the audience who is viewing the work, and profoundly shapes the project. Each participant has their own ideas of identification and making a space for them to articulate it within the work is the most important part.