Introductions/Introducciones Alexcia DeVasquez
Alexcia’s website also Mexico, Spaces Between Places, Love Politics, Mexico 2008
Tell me about your photographic series Nursery Rhymes
I really heard my first nursery rhyme in first grade. My memory of it is that the teacher was teaching us all a new song, but I realized after a few verses, that everyone else knew “Three Blind Mice” but not me. While sorting out the words, I became very confused, did we know the farmer’s wife? Was a “carver’s knife” really sharp? And why does this class full of people I like, want to kill anything?
I never understood the point of nursery rhymes, and quickly found out that they were to teach a lesson that nobody seemed to really remember from a long, long time ago. The Nursery Rhyme project is an exploration for an explanation and reflection of these old messages. I wanted to illustrate my own book of Nursery Rhymes showing both the comfort and the unease that these stories can bring.
How has your photography developed since you left school?
Wow, I don’t know where to begin. In school, I didn’t know if I wanted to focus more on the image or the message that I wanted to send. I was lost between what the camera captured and what I could create with what it captured. Since I’ve left school, I defiantly want to show more of a straight image than an image between reality and memory or imagination.
How has your mind- set changed from finding your style to solidifying what you photograph today?
I’m just glad that you didn’t ask “how did your style change while you solidified what you photograph today,” because I don’t know if it has solidified. My mind-set let go. My mind learned how to relax and my mind was able to settle into focusing on what I wanted to share with people. I still want to share the gamut of emotions, but I’m more comfortable sharing it in a body of work instead of trying to capture it into one image.
Honestly, I let it go, I left my apartment, I left my city, I left the only state I had lived in, I left my country to live with my fiance, dog, cat and his family, who I barely knew, in a country I’d never been to, with laws I didn’t know, with customs I hadn’t learned.
I learned what American values I had because I was American and learned what were mine because I’m me. I left the importance of credit reports and gained a true understanding of the importance of a reputation (despite not really having one). I turned strangers into friends and learned how to answer the question “What is really important?”
Photographing so many things so that I could compile them later wasn’t an option anymore. I didn’t have the dual monitors, the printers, the hard drive space or more importantly the cultural understanding of my subject for that to work. I realized the value of what will never happen again not only what I would like to create.
What are you working on now?
I’m working my way off the boat.
I recently came back to America and have been going through culture shock being here. To my surprise, it was much stranger moving BACK here than it was leaving. I’m working on a project of some of the things that are the everyday and normal here but seem so strange to me after being away for a while. I’m considering including text with the images some how. I’m not sure how, but I’ll find a way.
I introduce Alexcia DeVasquez
