Martha Naranjo Sandoval, a Mexican artist and photographer based in Teotihuacan, Mexico, recently published her evocative photography book “Small Death.” This work beautifully represents her experiences and perceptions as an immigrant. It artistically and movingly conveys that migrant experience through photographs of their path from Mexico City to New York. With its publication by Mack, “Small Death” invites viewers to explore the nuances of displacement and belonging that shape Sandoval’s identity.
The book is a beautiful portal into Sandoval’s formative years in New York. Having relocated from Mexico City in 2014, her story is told in powerful images. Sandoval beautifully explores the nuances of her experience through her artistic lens. She deftly points to the spaces between displacement and an embodied feeling of rootedness in one’s adopted place. Her photographic work serves as a tangible touchstone to everything she’s ever lived. Throughout the course of the book, they examine how her environment physically and psychologically develops her identity.
Sandoval’s work is given new life and context via original contact sheets and film reels. This tactile, exploratory and generative approach is reminiscent of the darkroom practice or the making of a scrapbook. This limited edition, handbound artist’s book is a beautiful collection of intervened streetscapes, intimate nude self-portraits, found compositions, and tender family moments. Each photograph is shot through with a deep, vibrant awareness of the interpersonal networks and environmental backdrops that shape the wonderfully protean being she has become.
In “Small Death,” Sandoval portrays her husband, Dylan, alongside her parents and siblings, offering glimpses into their homes and the contrasting rural and urban landscapes that connect the United States and Mexico. The photographs document her own experience but connect to the larger stories of migration, displacement and family connection. Though she had moved to the U.S., her parents stayed in Mexico, forming an aching juxtaposition between her new life and where she came from.
Self-portraits in close-up are integral to Sandoval’s story, acting as indicators of her interiority and introspective sensibility. It is through these images that we join her meditation-in-progress. They shed light on her experience of overcoming the struggle of living in a different country while remaining close to her roots. Sandoval’s collaboration with Dylan on some of the photographs deepens the narrative even more, exploring the relationship that anchors and fuels her creative process.