Hummingbirds, the only birds able to fly backwards, mirror grief’s pull between past and present. After leaving Costa Rica, my father died from a neurodegenerative disease. He once cared for a hummingbird that still visits my mother, echoing a local belief that these birds carry the souls of the dead.
The project explores the hummingbird as a migratory body moving between science and myth. Engaging personal, colonial, and ornithological archives, it questions how photography attempts to capture and classify unstable forms of life, where human and more-than-human worlds intersect.
In a time of ecological fragility, it reflects on hybrid realities between memory, nature, and systems of knowledge, while opening tender ways to hold memory and loss.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Joel Jimenez (b. 1993, Costa Rica) is an artist and filmmaker based in Madrid, Spain. His practice explores memory, power, and more-than-human issues. His work has been exhibited internationally at PhotoEspaña, PhotoVogue, and Paris Photo.
