Claudia Ruiz Gustafson

María | María is the inspiration for the third and last chapter of Historias fragmentadas, a photographic exercise of memory and imagination. While reflecting on my story, I noticed there was one important person missing; a live-in maid my parents hired when we moved to the suburbs of Lima when I was seven. She doesn’t appear in any family portrait and sadly, we don’t have record of her last name or her birthday.
Domestic help in Perú is usually hired without written contracts, so attempts to locate her would be futile. Her name was María, and she eventually left us to start a family of her own. It was a sad departure for me because María had been my confidante, my friend, and my teacher, during a vulnerable time in my life. She sang to me in Quechua, the beautiful language of the Andes; she grew chamomile flowers for my anxiety; and she taught me simple games when I was lonely.  

I created this series in my family home in Lima, Perú and in María’s home town of Villa El Salvador to photograph the streets where she might have walked. I worked with a Quechua woman whose name, coincidentally, was also María. For weeks we collaborated in the house where my parents still live today. Together we explored the same walls, the same floors, the same light that entered the same windows that my María experienced. The furniture and ornaments that she touched have remained unchanged over the years. Traveling to María’s hometown helped me connect with her memory. Through this project, I was able to honor an important woman in my life and the unconditional love that she gave me.

 María is a conversation with the past, an intimate and personal revelation of connection and loss between where we come from and where we are. www.claudiafineart.com