Litoral
By Paloma Palomino
Litoral is a photographic series that explores the relationship between water, the body and the territory from an affective, cultural and social perspective.
This project began in Lisbon, under the name of VERÃO, in a context of personal migration. As a foreigner in a new city, I found beaches not only a seasonal refuge, but a symbolic space of rest, belonging, and healing. Water, as a threshold, allowed me to float between geographies and affections, and to observe how in that shared environment cultural distances dissolve, at least for moments.
In its continuation in Chile, this work returns to the coasts of the central coast, where family rituals, childhood games and community practices are repeated every summer that shape a collective memory of leisure. Chilean beaches, full of everyday gestures and intergenerational relationships, become the scene of a visual archive that accounts for the persistence of the body as a place of encounter and resistance.
In an era where the digital colonizes our most intimate spaces, this work proposes a pause. The images summon a slower, almost suspended time, where bodies are disconnected, phones disappear, and the present is inhabited with all the senses. The beach is revealed as one of the few spaces still open, free and without distinction of class, where people can simply be together, sharing shade, water, fruit or silence.
The project also seeks to interrogate the notion of the common in a hyper-individualized world. What does a shared territory mean today? Which bodies have access to these spaces? And how can these environments be preserved in the face of the multiple threats that cross them, from the privatization of the coastline to climate change? Through photography, this work observes those fragments of life that usually go unnoticed: a child buried in the sand, a grandmother reading in the shadows, teenagers laughing in the salt water. Minimal scenes that, taken together, reveal the political value of rest.
About the Author:
Paloma Montecinos Ochoa, also known as Paloma Palomino, is a photographer and editor. Her work focuses on documentary portraiture with an anthropological perspective, exploring themes such as identity, territory, migration and everyday life. Through a sensitive and close aesthetic, his images seek to capture gestures and human bonds in complex social contexts.
She was the official photographer of the second campaign of former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and the author of the portrait of the current President, Gabriel Boric. She has worked with media such as VICE, Red Bull Cultura and Upper Playground, and has exhibited in spaces such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Matucana 100, the National Museum of Fine Arts and the La Moneda Cultural Center.
His work has been recognized with awards such as first place in the SHOWROOM Contest of Ch.ACO and an honorable mention in Fotos Prensa 2016. Currently, she works at the photography publishing house Metalibro and develops visual research on migration, displacement and affections, which crosses territories such as Chile and Portugal.
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