Luz Elena Castro was part of the first generation of Colombian women who practiced photojournalism. During the 1980s, she worked for the newspaper El Mundo, a liberal daily that was born in Medellín with a strong emphasis on photojournalism. There Luchi - as she is better known - covered sporting, social and political events at a time when both the public and private spheres were permeated by drug trafficking. She describes this decade as an intense and dark time, but also rich and flourishing because parallel to the terror, the city was experiencing a cultural and artistic explosion that she also knew closely.

This context of great contrasts is the setting in which the photographer portrays most of the images of women gathered in this room. They suggest gestures, actions and bodies of women that subvert historically performative acts, be they mothers, martyrs, virgins or lovers. Through the lens of Luz Elena, these women transform the meanings behind their femininity, motherhood or suffering, fragmenting the linearity of their stories. Luchi fixes her gaze on women who look at themselves and understand that they are much more than their circumstances.

Castro's images are sharp and political because they subvert the way in which women are usually represented, that is, to be seen by an alien gaze that usually judges and points. Contrary to this, these women are captured from a close look just at the moment when time breaks to allow them to move on.