In the Heat is a subjective depiction of the Panamanian social landscape. The title references the country's (mostly) humid climate, which has shaped its appearance, and forged the character of its inhabitants. More importantly, it alludes to a state of tension that describes my bittersweet stay of a year and a half in a place I felt at odds with. The series interrogates how personal experience influences the ways one negotiates, and ultimately represents, the landscape. As a consequence, the colorful Panama found in travel brochures is purposefully absent.
The pictures, however, are not mere illustrations of my emotions. What interests me is the relationship between landscape and state of mind; the understanding of pictures as a reflection of experience, but also as placeholders for pain, halfway between Szarkowski’s allegorical definition of the mirror and the window. The open-ended narrative does not make an effort to hide my prejudices and desires. For me, this type of apocryphal evidence found in everyday life reflects the human condition obliquely, and encourages sociopolitical as well as biographical readings.
