OPHELIA

"...When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
And mermaid-like a while they bore her up
Wich time she chanted snatches of old lauds,
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element. But long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death

-Alas then she is drowned?

Dorwned, drowned. "

Hamlet. William Shakespeare

2009

Photos: 1.20m x 80 cm

Ophelia is a very personal psychomagic action in collaboration with the photographer Rodrigo Elizarrarás after my father's death. It is shot in Sietebocas, one of the ancient mayan cenotes- underground rivers that are considered as doors to the Underworld. During this process, skin diving from 8 to 16 meters in a nightgown was a challenging but indeed very magical experience of touching death in a way and leaving great sorrow behind in the deep.

I have always been diver, and as part of this ritual -which took a few months-we also went scuba diving to the point where the rainwater from the cave meets the ocean water. Some 26 meters below in the cave, and in 100% darkness, was an astonishing experience of reaching a halocline- a place where the two bodies of water meet, and the salty one, much more dense, looks like an ocean below the ocean when it meets the fresh water from the cenote. Over this eerie surface where the waters meet, lit by a small torch, I could see a moving sulphur mist created by bacteria sweeping in the darkness. When I went through it, I noticed how the divers that were with me and their lights completely vanished from sight. It really was like crossing to the other world. It was so enthralling I might have even stayed there, but I was fortunate enough that Rodrigo pulled me out by the hair, so we continue to have a life saving friendship.