Josephine
Sacabo
Lessons from the Shadows
"Deserted villages of rural Mexico, where images and memories of the past linger like unquiet ghosts, haunted the imaginations of two artists writer Juan Rulfo and photographer Josephine Sacabo. In one such village of the mind, Comala, Rulfo set his classic novel Pedro Paramo, a dream-like tale that intertwines a man's quest to find his lost father and reclaim his patrimony with the father's obsessive love for a woman who will not be possessed Susana San Juan." Thus begins the introduction to Josephine Sacabo's newest book which brings together her photographs with an updated translation of Rulfo's novel.
Josephine Sacabo used Pedro Paramo as the starting point for a series of evocative photographs she calls "The Unreachable World of Susana San Juan: Homage to Juan Rulfo." As Sacabo explains, it is "the story of a woman forced to take refuge in madness as a means of protecting her inner world from the ravages of the forces around her: a cruel and tyrannical patriarchy, a church that offers no redemption, the senseless violence of revolution, and death itself." These photographs are Sacabo's attempt to depict a world as seen through the eyes of its tragic heroine. It is her photographic homage to Mexico, to Juan Rulfo, and to Susana San Juans everywhere who refuse to be silenced.
Along with images from Pedro Paramo, Sacabo will debut new work which continues her exploration of the dream state and what we envision when we lose ourselves to sleep. In these photographs, the moon takes center stage, taking the viewer on a journey which is both nurturing and ominous, as figures appear to float and fall from the sky.