Transgression & Identity

My Scholarship entry - Subverting Spaces

Guatemala | Sunday, November 23, 2014 | 5 photos

My eyes widened as young women desperately ran up to stopped cars in an attempt to sell fruit for mere pocket change. I gasped as gaunt, starving dogs covered in flies rummaged through trash cans for a morsel of food, despite the bystanders hurling rocks at them. I covered my face to shield myself from the fumes and smoke permeating the air due to huge heaps of waste burning in every town. These sights were permanently seared in my mind as I traveled through Guatemala and pondered the relationship between space and its inhabitants. I experienced different geographies than those to which I had been accustomed, yet I grew inspired to carry on in my journey and document transgressions of space through photography. As a geographer, I have been privileged to travel for research in university and am writing my thesis on the geopolitics of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Having the opportunity as a geographer to engage with the Peruvian Amazon and amplify the volume of the voices of others to address nature's relationship to society through photography and training with Jason Edwards would allow me to incorporate compassion and collaboration in being a story teller.