My Thesis Exhibition “Amor Eterno (Love Eternal)” to end my BFA program.

In my project, I explore my identity as a Mexican-American woman through the differing grief cultures in my heritage.
During this year, I had lost 5 family members through the course of one year. This experience really forced me to come to terms with the difficult emotions that not only come through the grief process, but as trying to grieve as a minority in a town that did not have a large Latino/x presence.

The poster series utilizes marigolds and lilies to represent the combatting grief cultures: lilies for American and marigolds to represent Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead. The title of the series is also significant as it alludes to the song by Vicente Fernandes of the same name, which is commonly used for funerals in Mexican culture. I include photos of the family member, times at which I found out they passed, their passing location or where I was upon hearing the news, as well as excerpts in both English and Spanish in my own handwriting scanned into the poster that detail my feelings about the family member and how each culture expects me to grieve.

Not only did this project allow me to handle the difficult emotions of losing so many loved ones at one time, but also allowed me to connect with people of different backgrounds and better educated them on the discourse of growing up Mexican-American, especially being a Mexican-American in a town with little Latino/x population. Notable interactions I had were of Bloomington locals who expressed that they did not know anything about how different grief culture actually is, and expressed that the feeling could be very alienating. They also expressed how feminism and a “woman’s place” in society can also add on to this alienation and expectation to be more than what you’re experiencing. This result is exactly what I wanted to achieve through my exhibition.

Software Used: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop