Ablution is a multidisciplinary body of work—spanning site-specific performance, video installation, and hyper-realistic oil painting—that addresses the complex intersections of border politics, gendered labor, race, and language. Created in direct response to being targeted with the xenophobic slur “wetback” (mojada), the project uses water as both medium and metaphor to enact a ritualistic cleansing of derogatory language and social judgment. By submerging the body into contested aquatic sites—from the Tijuana/San Diego border shoreline to public pool and private tub—Ablution transforms an instrument of marginalization into a space of resistance, dignity, and catharsis.
The project deconstructs the historical, religious, and mythological weight carried by women in relation to water. It traces a lineage from indigenous pre-Columbian reverence—where water, embodied by the deity Chalchiuhtlicue, symbolized fertility, creation, and raw power—to Catholic traditions of baptism and guilt-washing, which often reframe immigrant and female identity through narratives of stain or servitude. Ablution subverts colonial and patriarchal folklore, such as the tragic legend of La Llorona or the perilous myth of the Siren. Rather than portraying women as passive victims or weeping figures bound to tragedy, the work reclaims the female form as active, resilient, and self-authored.
In these works, light fracturing through water distorts and refracts the figure, echoing society’s fragmented perception of the bicultural immigrant while asserting an undeniable, luminous presence.
Ultimately, Ablution is an act of spiritual and political reclamation. It strips away the derogatory weight attached to migrancy, insisting on the fluidity, dignity, and agency of bodies that navigate borders. Through the restorative power of water, the project replaces inherited shame with visual sovereignty, declaring our capacity to cleanse our own histories and stand as authors of our own narratives.