This series originated with “Los Panzudos Mercedarios”, the stout guardians of the neighborhood of La Merced in San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas, México.
The Panzudos represent the sins: the more sins a person has to expiate, the bigger and uglier his attire will be, the better to cure his sins. These figures herald the feast day of Our Lady of La Merced and accompany her, purifying themselves in the process. The announcement is made as the figure of the Virgin Mary passes by, carried on the shoulders of her bearers, with a retinue of Aztecs, Catholics, and Moors mounted on horseback, dressed as Arabs and with their faces painted, representing the Muslims who invaded and occupied Spain between 702 and 1492.
Integrated this ancestral imaginary with the exploration of familiar universe. From a family event where my great aunt dies of an autoimmune disease called ‘scleroderma’ that deforms her throughout her life, I resort to fantasy and fiction to rebuild her image. I try to investigate the links, the monstrosity, disease and death.
I explore the tunnels of representation of domestic space. Fusing it with pre-Hispanic traditions and the apocalyptic visions of the Catholic religión. This work gives new meaning to the intrincate tangle of the concealed and the visible, the individual and the collective subconscious, on the highly complex map of coexisting cultures and beliefs in contemporary Mexico.
About Diego Moreno
San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas. Mexico. 1992. He formally started his photography studies in the Chiapas Art Gymnasium in 2012. In 2014, he studied the Diploma in Photonautical and new media, awarded by the World Press Photo association. Graduated from the Seminary of Contemporary Photography 2015 of the Center of the Image and the Center of the Arts of San Agustín, Etla, Oaxaca. He has been awarded several prizes around the world such as: The Ibero-American Photography Award POY LATAM 2019; The International Prize of the image 2019; Young Talent Award Of the fifth African biennial of photography in Ethiopia and The LensCulture Emerging Talent Award 2018.
In 2018, he published his first photo album entitled HUÉSPED and in 2019 his second book IN MY MIND THERE IS NEVER SILENCE by the Mexican publishing house INFRAMUNDO.
Selected in 2017 by Foam Amsterdam as Young Mexican Talent. And in 2016 Named as one of the photographers to follow in the world by The British Journal of Photography in its talent show in London, United Kingdom. He has been awarded the Acquisition Award of the X Puebla de los Ángeles Biennial 2015 in Mexico and the Young Creators Grant of the FONCA in 2015 and 2017.
His work is part of individual and collective exhibitions in Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Chile, Brazil, India, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Israel, Italy, Spain, Amsterdam, Norway, Greece, Paris, Lithuania, London and the United States. He has also had various publications in different international and national media such as: The Guardian, The British Journal Of Photography, Vogue Italy, Internazionale Magazine, Vice Magazine, LensCulture, Der Greif, Blink Magazine, The sun, BuzzFeed, FutureShoots, Dienach Magazine, Photo World Magazine China, Burn Magazine, The culture Trip, Joia Magazine, PROPA Magazine, Tierra Adentro Magazine, Cuartoscuro among others. [Official Website]
