This series was made in collaboration with Santos H. bädi (otomí shaman).

The northern mountain region of Puebla in Mexico is a territory inhabited by the Totonaco, Nahua, Otomí, and Tepehua people. Although their population went through an evangelization process during the Spanish invasion, the cult of Mesoamerican deities is still preserved.

Paper is a substantial element in this region, it is made out of the bark of the mulberry tree. During a ritual healing process, shamans cut out paper deities; these “spirits” of seeds such as chili, pumpkin, corn, and beans, among others, communicate with forces of good and evil. Each one of these representations has a different power to help a sick person. The senses are cultural, and the ache state of a body in this area is generally different from city sufferings; bad airs, frights, and the evil eye, are some of the problems to deal with.

My mother lived her youth in the Sierra Norte of Puebla; the stories she told me and the constant visits to this place during my childhood made me grow up in contact with other notions of illness and thus other forms of healing.

Molting time is a photo essay that addresses the affliction of the body/mind/spirit, and the search to ease it. Such a healing process generates movement, introspection, transmutation, a connection with what is not necessarily human, it draws upon botany knowledge and the philosophize of these cultures around the force of nature.