Muerte de Papel

Paper Murders (Muerte de Papel) grew out of my brief experience as a photojournalist in Puerto Rico in 2001, when I was assigned to cover violent crimes tied to gangs, organized crime, and domestic tragedies. Confronted daily with images of death and trauma, I began to lose my sense of photography as a vehicle for personal expression. Beyond what I photographed on assignment, I also began collecting images of violence published in local newspapers—images that mirrored the harsh reality of the island.

In an effort to process this experience and reclaim photography for myself, I started reworking these crime images by combining them with my own photographs of landscapes and intimate details. I then re-photographed the collages with my old Speed Graphic camera, creating hybrid works that blurred journalism, memory, and critique.

This process became both catharsis and commentary—an exploration of Puerto Rico’s entrenched culture of violence, but also a way of reconnecting with the medium as an instrument of reinvention and redemption.