Your name
Alejandra Leyva
Place of birth
Guadalajara, Mexico
Place where you live now
Guadalajara, Mexico
3 words to describe you
Proactive, engaged, continually questioning
Why do you take pictures?
I started taking photographs as a way of getting to know new realities. Even as a way to learn more about life and what is around me. Some time later, photography itself would become a form of resistance, not only because it was my formal work, but by learning not to give up on the circumstances that life sets for us, because telling the stories of others makes us land in our reality and often one full of privileges. So I could define photography as the lifeline that makes me continue, puts my feet on the ground, as well as the flare that in dark times rescues and makes me always continue forward.
Where do you get your inspiration?
Being a creator, inspiration comes from all possible places, from television series, the news, a book or a painting. But inspiration and the term take a resignification in the most essential sense; how is it that we can nourish ourselves from reality? For me, most of the photos and themes I choose come from lived experience or from the same amazement in finding something that has always been there but I never saw or paid attention to. So I wouldn't know whether to call it inspiration or reconnection with the space, the people or the circumstances, but ultimately something that moves me when creating is the amazement of understanding what is around me.
Who are your influences?
The main influences are always from a deep admiration for writers such as Chimamanda Ngozi, Valeria Luiselli, Clarice Lispector and Guadalupe Nettel. Photographers like Koral Carballo, Citlali Fabián, Juanita Escobar, Wara Vargas who in many ways have been a compass for me when choosing topics or for their philosophy regarding creation.
What determines the subject matter you choose?
I am a photographer who constantly seeks to understand and find new social horizons. The style of narration connected to my methodology arises from the decolonial thesis of the writer Chimamanda Angozi and the danger of the single story. How many lives/realities do we leave out when we assimilate as a single truth? Every time we create or tell a story we must keep in mind the importance of knowing that a story can be diverse in contrasts and realities. Much of this work comes from how I would explain this topic to my seven-year-old daughter. These elements that arise from the search have made me connect with stories about the region I live in and come from and upon returning after a few years away , redefining my origin by analyzing not only from what privilege I create, but how my work is born and how it must be considered. Thus, from the decolonial narrative I embrace this idea and join it to a series of questions: Why is it important to tell that story? Who would benefit from its publication/exhibition? What would be the main contribution to the community/person that allows me to work together with them? What objective will be met?
What impact would you like your art to have?
In each of my works I seek to have an analysis of what is presented. Always asking, what am I taking it for? Who benefits? And why is it important to know? Therefore, when developing a work I seek that the first impact is in a positive way from the person I photograph as well as an agreement on what to show, how to show it and that this enriches those of us who get involved equally.
What artwork do you never get bored with?
Seeing how colleagues take on new narratives or platforms, whether from digital, AI or analog, and manage to rethink the way they tell stories.
Is there anything you want to add?
No, thank you :)
