DEPRESSION. POSSESSION. REPRESSION. explores the protective and resilient mechanisms women in my family used to survive physical imbalances and mental disorders that gradually affected their bodies. Through interventions in my family’s photographic archive, I introduce constant tension to expose the absence of emotional references in my matrilineal heritage. By layering meanings, I reveal emotional, hormonal, social, and cultural gaps that prevented these women from maturing in environments of understanding, care, and support.

This lack of emotional references shaped my own maturation and intersected with the political realities in which I coexisted. Set against the backdrop of Brazil’s dictatorship, emotional voids mirror the historical absences carried by bodies living under censorship and oppression.

The suppression of female health issues and taboos surrounding mental illness is compounded by the geopolitical context in which these women lived. Migrations between Brazil and the United States became untranslatable experiences, leaving ancestral female bodies vulnerable to political ideologies, social rhetoric, and religious doctrine.

I highlight moments when international policies, social strategies, and cultural indoctrination caused women in my lineage to lose possession of their own bodies. My family archive becomes evidence of the gradual loss of autonomy endured by territories and bodies where silencing and repression prevail.