Elsa Escamilla shows the community life of the Purépechas

Hands that work, bodies that resist, faces that do not turn away. Elsa Escamilla’s series is based on this triad; there is no artifice or emphasis, only the permanence of everyday life captured in black and white, where each gesture acquires its own weight.

At the Photography Archive Museum, the exhibition Absolute presence: The women of the p’urhépecha nation It brings together 32 images that cover daily life in communities in Michoacán.

The sequence unfolds without fanfare: The virgin girl, The wait, Women in community, The mourners y Nostalgia. Each piece opens a scene that does not exhaust itself, but finds continuity in the next.

The project condenses more than a decade of work on the Purépecha plateau. In interview with The Day, Escamilla (Mexico City, 1949) explained that his arrival from the capital marked a first distance.

“If I had grown up on the plateau, perhaps everything would be everyday; coming from outside changed the perspective, everything was new.” Since 2003 he has lived in Morelia; That initial displacement ended up becoming a sustained relationship with the territory and its inhabitants.

Initially, their attention focused on the festivities and the cultural mix that makes them up. “I was shocked that the demonstration occurred on the street; I began to tour the plateau to understand those interrelationships,” he added. On that journey he noticed an interculture marked by external influences that transformed traditions. There his focus changed course.

The breaking point occurred in a match. A woman, dressed in traditional dress, was pushing a wheelbarrow with construction material and lifting her house.

“She was in charge of the work because her husband migrated; there I understood another world that I was not seeing,” said the photographer. From that moment on, the series was reconfigured. “Not only did they perform work considered feminine; they also took on activities that men previously did.”

Since then, the images focus on those who remain. Elsa Escamilla raised it directly. “There is a lot of talk about those who leave, but not about those who stay.” Taking care of children, managing the home, waiting for remittances and collective organization are included in this space.

Regarding that reality, he went further. “They have a worse time because they don’t have money or anyone to accompany them; many times they take care of everything.” Migration, he pointed out, “is not only the journey of those who leave, but what happens to those who sustain daily life in their absence.”

Accessing those scenes involved time. “You have to win over the community; you have to go many times, talk, build trust,” Escamilla explained. It is not enough to arrive once: the relationship is built with insistence, with presence, with dialogue.

His way of looking is also sustained by that closeness. “The strength of the images comes from them, but also from the immense respect I have for them,” he said in reference to an ethic that he links to the work of Mariana Yampolsky and Lola Álvarez Bravo.

The selection and arrangement of the set was carried out in collaboration with the art historian Juan Carlos Jiménez Abarca, curator of the exhibition, who proposed a reading that articulates migration, cultural transformation and the presence of women in community life.

The series has also been presented in other spaces. In a plaza in Morelia, the photographs were shown to those who do not usually go to galleries. Later, in Chicago, United States, the reception was marked by recognition and doubt.

Escamilla recalled the testimony of a migrant who questioned whether it had been worth leaving and losing what she had, aware that returning would be almost impossible.

In this crossroads of experiences, the artist found another lesson. “I learned that we can be better people if we maintain that sense of community. They taught me that there are other ways of living, not focused on the individual.

“I don’t have closed expectations; I present the project as a Mexico that still exists. And in that register, where cooking, building, caring for and accompanying are repeated without stridency, I leave one last idea: if an image manages to make you feel something, no matter what, then it is already done.”

Recognition of his career

The municipalist network Leonas de la Corregidora awarded Elsa Escamilla recognition for her career and work in making the women of Michoacán visible. The distinction was awarded in recent days in the reception hall of the state Congress.

The exhibition Absolute presence: The women of the p’urhépecha nation It will remain open to the public until April 25, 2026, from Tuesday to Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with free admission, at the Photography Archive Museum (República de Guatemala 34, Centro Historico).