Polvo y Pétalos

A deeper look into the process behind my Marks of Memory series and the women who continue to inspire me as an artist and a human being.

Polvo y Pétalos | Original mixed media work. For all inquiries please contact Lauren@Mitty.Art or visit my website cristinamittermeier.com.

Polvo y Pétalos grew from contemplating the many ways the world and its systems of power have sought to define, control, and erase the value of women. Growing up in Mexico, the expectation was that I would find a husband, have children, and that this would be the most meaningful thing I could do with my life. Thankfully, my mother, a highly educated psychologist, believed in the value of education and the freedom to pursue our passions regardless of gender. When I decided that I wanted to study the marine sciences, my father declared it a waste of time, but my mother became my champion. She convinced him to let me go and it is thanks to her that I was given the freedom to imagine a different future for myself.

However, not all women are fortunate enough to have someone advocating for their future. Many of the women I have met over the years had absolutely no choice in becoming wives and mothers from far too young an age, with little or no access to education or any opportunities beyond the home. Their lives have unfolded within systems not built for them, with centuries of displacement, restrictions, and colonial structures of power continuing to constrain the realities they navigate.

Yet when I photograph women in these remote corners of the world, I find them proudly wearing traditional clothing, laughing, holding one another and their children, singing, and smiling. When my own children were young, I sometimes brought them with me, and we were always welcomed with open arms into what felt like a secret club: a universal sisterhood built on women caring for one another, even in the face of extraordinary hardship.

Two women from the Suri People of the Omo Valley in Ethiopia.

Polvo, dust, and pétalos, petals, may seem delicate and easily swept away, yet both are part of the cycles that sustain life on this planet. The flowers in this piece were made from my own legal records, immigration documents, my marriage certificate, and divorce papers: remnants of bureaucratic systems with the power to grant or deny women authority over their own lives. They are, in a Mexican-inspired tradition, floral offerings to the women whose stories and voices persist despite generations of erasure and marginalization.

Stories we may never fully know, but from which the future grows.

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