Weekend Portfolio: Ana Vallejo
Neuromantic
My name is Ana and I am a love addict. All my life, I have been consumed by anxiety and trapped in a loop of idealizing unavailable men.
In march 2020 the Covid 19 pandemic severely hit NY and I was suddenly trapped in my apartment with my anxieties.
This ignited a process of looking inward to dissect and find the source of my addiction.
I started a personal investigation where I merge neuroscience, psychology, images,, and anonymously sourced data from questions I ask strangers.
I photographed partners, close friends, and family members with whom I share similar histories and relationship experiences. My apartment became the stage where I could re signify my traumas and inner world.
I discovered that emotional and physical abuse makes us develop an insecure attachment style with dysfunctional coping mechanisms affecting the quality of our relationships and making us prone to addictions. I found studies that suggest that exposure to trauma can change the way genes express stress in our brain and that it can be passed on transgenerationally whithin our family systems. I realized my intense infatuations were a way to dissociate from reality and seek pleasure to anesthetize my life-long emotional pain.
As I started changing throughout the project, I felt the need to learn more about love and intimacy through the Queer community and started reaching out to Queer couples to interview them and photograph their connection. With this new insight I started resignifying my sexuality and relationship to love as I learned more about their unique and free way of approaching intimacy.
In the data aspect of the project, I designed an anonymous survey alongside data scientist Andrew Hill to assess how people experience emotions in relationships according to their attachment style. (Link to the survey: http://178.128.159.5/survey ). The surveys provide a safe space of expression which will also give us insight into how people feel and perceive their intimacy. The next step is to design an interactive website with the help of web developer Bowei Xu, where people can answer the survey and navigate other people's experiences. Some of my research and excerpts form these surveys are shares through the instagram account @all_these_feelingss in collaboration with graphic designer Catalina López.
Through this interdisciplinary scrutinization of relationships, Neuromantic delves into dysfunctional relationships to ultimately highlight why healthy relationships and trauma integration are essential for our wellbeing and mental health.
(project website: https://readymag.com/u632244703/neuromantic/)
ig: @all_these_feelingss (graphic design by Catalina López)
About Ana Vallejo
I am an interdisciplinary mixed media artist and conceptual documentary photographer from Colombia based in New York. I have a background in biology and I am fascinated with the brain, human consciousness, and its ability to expand and transform.
My projects are research-based and experimental. They invite chance and collaboration to delve into human perception, memory, and emotions. I am interested in marginal spaces that reside outside of the status and are often excluded by society.
Growing up with a schizophrenic father, an anxious family system, and in a country that has normalized war and violence, I am drawn to how trauma affects our emotions, mental health, and relationships. I am fascinated by the potential that art and social bonds offer to heal and transcend.
I graduated from the New Media Narratives program at the International Center of Photography in NYC as a recipient of the Mary Ellen Mark Memorial Scholarship and a Director’s Fellowship.
My work has been exhibited in festivals and venues like Photo Vogue Festival (Milan), Ph Museum Days (Italy), Currents New Media Festival (Santa Fe, California), Month of Photgraphy in Los Angeles, Lens Culture Emerging Talent (NY) and Foam (Amsterdarm), Berlin Photo Week, and Lumix festival (Germany). In 2021 I was selected Foam Talent, received the Excellence in Multimedia Storytelling award by Center Santa Fe, and earned the 1st prize of The PhMuseum Women Photographers Grant. In 2022 I was selected to be part of the 12th edition of the Organ Vida Festival in the Contemporary Museum of Zagreb. I will have a solo show in September at PH Museum Days 2022 Festival in Bologna.
To see more of Ana’s work, visit here.
