They recognize Ana Victoria Jiménez, a reference in the fight for women’s rights in the country

The talk Hand gestures. Gestures from the archive: A tribute to Ana Victoria Jiménez It was a loving portrait of one of the most important documentarians of the feminist struggle in Mexico: Ana Victoria Jiménez Ramírez (1941-2025). Writer, photographer and communist activist, she created one of the most extensive historical archives of the fight for women’s rights in the country.

The event, held in the context of International Women’s Day, was organized by the Nelson Mandela Extraordinary Chair of Human Rights in the Arts and took place at the Casa del Lago-Juan José Arreola of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Participating were Yuruen Lerma, a doctor and feminist researcher specialized in archiving and historical memory, and the editor Andrea García, founder of Miau Ediciones, which has published two books by the honoree: Swing over the cliff y Mercedes’ tasks.

“Ana Victoria was neither dry nor distant. When they invited me to this event, the first thing I decided to tell was her voice, which was serious, slow, deep, which told stories on Sunday afternoons. She was my aunt, my father is a distant cousin of her husband,” said Yuruen Lerma.

And she continued: “When I entered feminism I realized that she was a central figure. She was a member of the Communist Party since 1970 and traveled to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; she also founded the National Union of Mexican Women and was a member of the Women of Solidarity Action organization. She was a left-wing woman who believed that visual memory mattered and that is how she kept the stories.”

Ana Victoria Jiménez was present in the first marches in favor of the legalization of abortion and other mobilizations, such as the one on March 31, 1978. She also protested against sexist violence and supported the seamstresses who died during the 1985 earthquake. “She did not look from the outside, but rather she militated, got involved and created,” said Lerma.

Its archive, kept since 2011 in the Francisco Xavier Clavijero Library of the Universidad Iberoamericana, consists of more than 5 thousand documents, flyers, newspapers, posters and about 3 thousand photographs. In 2024, this collection was recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as part of the Memory of the World program.

“Homework notebook”

Andrea García explained: “During the Covid pandemic I looked for references to feminism. When I saw Ana Victoria’s work and started researching, I realized that it was impressive. Curiously, she was my neighbor, so there were many very lucky coincidences that led me to be able to explore all that material.

“I thought: ‘How come there is a collection like this and there are no books about it?’ Her images have appeared in important works, but not much is known about her. When I reviewed the file I was struck by the dummy from an agenda that dates back to 1970 and that Ana Victoria titled as Task Notebook. “She devised it together with a group that was dedicated to advocating for the rights of domestic workers.”

This agenda sought to call for reflection on how much time women dedicated to unpaid work in the family unit. The project was a collection of photographs that she took of her friend Mercedes Maya while she was doing domestic activities. “Our intention was to replicate that work,” García commented.

“After the Covid confinement ended, I visited her for the first time and asked her why she hadn’t finished that project, to which she told me: ‘Why do you want that if it hasn’t been done? Better look for something else’, and there I suggested doing a photo essay on that project. It was something very nice and that’s how the book was born. Mercedes’ tasks.

“It was a privilege to hear his opinion and feel his guidance. I was struck by his lack of understanding about the importance of his heritage. That’s also where Swing over the cliffa book in which images and phrases merge to build a visual poem about vertigo, fear and resistance. “Ana Victoria is a very important link for feminism and social struggles,” said the editor.

“She is my heroine and my role model. I take her congruence, as a human it is something very difficult to have, but she was. To publish about feminisms I also have to inhabit them. It is not perfect or simple and you have to identify when one has biases. I want to march, tell what happens out there, we are many voices and, if you don’t ask questions or don’t support, well I don’t see how you can know it,” he concluded.