Skin Maps
My great-grandmother, Melida Zavala battled breast cancer and had a mastectomy

My great-grandmother, Melida Zavala battled breast cancer and had a mastectomy when she was 83 years old. She is currently 93 and has never felt more like a women then she does now

Scars are a visualization of both healing and trauma. They map intersections of personal and universal experiences where they create individual stories of pain and trauma and transform them into shared stories of healing and growth. Scars disrupt the skin's smoothness and introduce a new irregularity due to the body's healing. The skin depicts a quiet restoration of a loud wound leaving maps of how our body shifts. Scars are markers of transformation as much as records of injury. Healing comes with much more than we would expect. It brings closure, happiness, confidence, memories, knowledge, diligence, and, most importantly, experience.

In each photograph, I strive to create a visual conversation between fragility and strength but more importantly, map each experience between people and their skin. There is a challenge in which we view imperfections—not as flaws but as unique markers of life lived. Trauma alters us, often in ways that are not immediately visible, but the scars stand as the visible remnants that something profound has happened. 

I ask my viewers to confront the uncomfortable beauty in these marks, the way they linger as reminders of what we carry with us long after a wound has healed.