Valparaíso, Chile blew my mind the second I set foot in it, a 19-year-old ex-patriot ready for a cultural change. I lived there from 2008-2010. Valparaíso was the city I became an adult in.

     For me it was the empyrean of colors and ever-changing art, bursting at the seams with life. I lived for a while in a squat with a constant flux of traveling acrobats, painters and writers, living with a feverish lust for life. In the anarchic chaos people flourished, falling dramatically down their acrobatic cloths, spinning and twirling in the air. The passion, the brazenness, the freedom!

     The homes of Valparaíso's hills were built organically, half on top of each other, doors swinging in the sky. It was in one of those that I fell in love and married my husband. It was also the town in which I began my musical career.

     In 2010 an 8.8 earthquake hit Valparaíso. Concrete rippled, houses fell, and electrical wires made fire in the air. Death's reality shook us. Having almost lost everything, I wanted to secure memories with photographs. I borrowed my father's camera and began to take photographs with an insatiable hunger that had been building for years.

     This was my beloved home down south.