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By: Lina María Martínez Mejía. Journalist at the UdeA Communications Department 

An album brings together pictures of a family's most important moments. Each photo tells a story that helps us see physical and emotional traits, as well as things passed down from one generation to the next. The project "Family Memory and Epigenetics: Reconstruction and Fictionalization of the Personal Archive," led by Professor Gloria Inés Ocampo Ramírez, suggests exploring and thinking about these memories through making and changing photographs. 

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Tracing memories in the family album is about recognizing what we inherit, not only in biological terms, but also emotional, cultural, and symbolic ones. Photo: Courtesy / Researchers of the project "Family Memory and Epigenetics: Reconstruction and Fictionalization of the Personal Archive." 

Marian Nathalia Torres Torres is one of the 11 participants who responded to the March 2025 call made by Universidad de Antioquia’s Faculty of Arts through its Photography Department. When she saw the invitation circulating on social media, she knew she wanted to live the experience. It read: "Would you be interested in reviewing your photo albums, exploring your family's memories, and learning photographic intervention techniques to build your own narrative?" 

She didn't hesitate. Although the call was for students in the fine arts program, she filled out the application form for the "Family Fiction Activation Workshops." She didn't fit the profile—an anthropologist from Universidad de Buenos Aires with a master’s degree in social sciences from Universidad Nacional de La Plata—but memory and photography, the central themes of the call, were a constant in her professional and personal pursuits. The response was positive: She was to attend four sessions. 

The meeting was in one of the rooms of the UdeA University Museum. During the second session, Marian Nathalia found magazine clippings, thread, needles, scissors, markers, and other tools on the work table. She was also given an envelope containing copies of the photographs she had taken from her family album, but not before promising her father that she would return the originals without fail. 

She looked at the photos she selected: Most of them are images of Mariela Torres, her mother, who passed away in 2022. Three years after that loss, Marian Nathalia discovered photo embroidery on fabric as a way to process her grief. With stitches and textures, she gave volume and color to the moments and anecdotes she experienced with her mother: "Embroidering her photos allowed me to remember her face because I felt it was fading in my memory. In these types of interventions, I found a way to bring her into the present, to connect with the knowledge of the women in my family and my female friends. And little by little, I began to expand this experience to support other people. That's why I was so excited to participate in these workshops." 

She also extracted photographs of other women in the family from the album: grandmothers, cousins, aunts, and friends in various settings and situations, such as birthdays, trips, visits to the park, or everyday activities. She reviewed them and tried to recall stories and identify recurring features or gestures. She also reviewed the concepts discussed in the first session of the workshops, when Gloria Inés Ocampo Ramírez, coordinator of the Photography Department at the Faculty of Arts, spoke about "Family Memory and Epigenetics: Reconstruction and Fictionalization of the Personal Archive," the research she submitted to the First Project Support Fund call when she joined UdeA as a full professor in 2022. 

In that first meeting, Professor Gloria asked the participants, as she had done herself, to look for signs of family memories and things passed down—both physical and emotional—in the photos they picked. The goal was to change the photos and create new stories: collages, handmade magazines, photo embroidery, and other art techniques to bring out hidden stories, bring back happy times, or help deal with tough feelings and experiences. 

Marian Nathalia noticed that her classmates—most of them budding artists—were drawing, cutting out, and piecing together fragments. She reviewed the words she jotted next to the photos and wondered why her mother, aunts, and grandmothers always looked pensive in those images. “I wish I knew what they were thinking. When I saw the pictures in this creative exercise, I understood why my work as an anthropologist and my personal pursuits have always focused on women's rights, ensuring that we connect with what we want, with our dreams. For example, I imagine what would have happened if some women in my family had had the opportunity to go to university.” 

With these thoughts and other memories that came back to her, she began cutting out photographs and embroidering on pieces of fabric. She silhouetted one of her with her mother and an aunt who had also passed away. Over the image, she wove a shawl with red thread—Mariela's favorite color—to keep all three of them warm. 

Marian Nathalia created the Tinkunakama project to unite memory and photo embroidery . Photo: Courtesy / Marian Nathalia Torres 

Memory, photography, and epigenetics 

Ever since she was a Fine Arts student at UdeA, Gloria Ocampo Ramírez chose photography as the means of expression that would give meaning to her work. That journey began in 2002 with long days in the darkroom, where she developed her first images. "Photography has been my refuge through many moments, both of joy and vulnerability. I can honestly say that photography saved me," Gloria says when asked about her work. 

After completing a degree in fine arts, she received a master's degree in aesthetics from Universidad Nacional de Colombia and a doctorate in arts from Universidad de Antioquia. During this period of education, photography remained a constant in her personal and academic pursuits. Her interest in photographic aesthetics was combined with reflections on memory, mental illness, death, and grief: "Memory constantly permeates my artistic work. My research comes from the need to explore memories, to understand certain behaviors and repetitions of family experiences. It is the way I find to understand myself." 

One of these personal experiences was the starting point for the research-creation project "Family Memory and Epigenetics: Reconstruction and Fictionalization of the Personal Archive," an initiative that showed her that art—particularly photography—is a form of reconciliation and acceptance. 

In 2019, Gloria knew something wasn't right: She couldn't sleep and felt deeply sad. She wanted to understand what was happening to her and to know whether she was repeating her family's history. She looked through her family albums, remembered her childhood, and saw herself reflected in her grandmother's face: her sad eyes, her hair full of gray; always silent and withdrawn. She inherited not only her name—Inés—but also her insomnia and depression from her grandmother. 

For Gloria, medical treatment wasn't enough, so she began collecting information. These explorations led her to understand that in the photo album—where we preserve family memories—one can find inherited behaviors or traits that go beyond physical traits. In this search, she also discovered scientific concepts and explanations that, unintentionally, intertwined to shape the research project and several photographic series in which she explores, questions, and reshapes her family history. 

Epigenetics was one of the most revealing concepts for Gloria. This field of study investigates how environmental factors—stress, diet, or emotional experiences—can modify gene expression without altering the DNA sequence. These modifications are inherited, meaning the experiences of our ancestors can impact our health and well-being. “At first, I wasn't thinking about doing research. I often do this type of research for myself because I need to find answers. That's why I kept reading about this topic, taking photos, and looking through my family album,” Gloria recalls. 

Some studies on epigenetics suggest that the effects of trauma can be passed on to subsequent generations. Wars, famines, and genocides are believed to have left an epigenetic mark on the descendants of the victims of these traumatic events. 

In addition to the definitions of epigenetics, Gloria considered those of identity, memory, transgenerational inheritance, and other concepts that led her to propose her first project as an associate professor at Universidad de Antioquia. "This research arose from the need to review my family and personal history in an attempt to recognize and reclaim it. It also stems from the intersection of themes that have concerned me as an artist and researcher. My purpose, then, is to explore the shadows and silences of family memories through photography and artistic creation," she explains. 

Reshaping family memories 

The workshops that Nathalia attended began on March 18, 2025. There were four sessions in which participants explored the concepts, reviewed their albums, and constructed their own narratives about their family memories. These encounters marked the project's methodological path: research-creation—an approach that integrates art and creative practices with research to produce knowledge—facilitated critical reflection, the participation of a group of students, and artistic production. 

"The eleven people who attended the event brought their photos, negatives, film viewers, letters, and other significant objects from their family archives. It was very interesting to see how the members of this group shared the same concerns as us: We wondered about our origin, our identity; we wanted to know the history of our ancestors and the physical and emotional heritage they passed on to us. A great deal of trust was built among the participants. Beautiful memories emerged, but also very difficult and sad stories. That's why, during the four sessions, we had a psychologist who supported and guided the attendees," says Isabella Pérez Restrepo, a young researcher who has supported Professor Gloria in the development of the research. 

Samuel Vallejo Mejía, attached to the master of fine arts program, also attended the workshops. In the drawers of his mother's house, he found photos of his ancestors and a blurry copy of his great-great-grandfather's ID card. He also compiled the data he'd researched on his family tree: recurring dates and names, moles that became family traits, and the red hair he inherited from his great-grandfather. 

Photographic interventions allow us to reconfigure the original meaning of an image through creative processes that redefine it. Rather than modifying the visual medium, these interventions propose new narratives. Photo: Courtesy / Researchers of the project "Family Memory and Epigenetics: Reconstruction and Fictionalization of the Personal Archive" 

When asked to construct his own narrative about his family's memories, Samuel began to intervene in the photos and create new scenes: In a collage, he brought together the Vallejos, Vélezes, and Echeverris at the same party. Furthermore, in a black and white photo of his great-great-grandparents, he embroidered their silhouettes with red thread as a way of traveling back in time to meet and embrace his ancestors. "I have a very bad memory, and I often doubt my memories; that's why I like to investigate and fictionalize the family archive," says Samuel. 

The interventions and stories that emerged during the workshops demonstrate the potential of art, particularly photography, for exploring family history. "The album is a living archive we can explore, a collection of images that plays a crucial role in the construction of memory and personal identity. We saw how participants reworked their memories and critically confronted family mandates in the workshops," explains Carolina Isaza, a master of arts student who is supporting the research. 

In the final session of the workshops, after cutting, gluing, writing, and embroidering, Marian Nathalia presented her classmates with the result of her work: a small book she called Autoethnography of Grief. "We see the photos in the family album all our lives, but this exercise led us to look at them with different eyes. It allowed me to grieve in my own way, to remember and treasure what my mother left me." 

The project's results will be compiled in a photobook that will include the photographic contributions of the eleven people who participated in the workshops. Professor Gloria Inés Ocampo will construct a new narrative based on these stories to reflect on the central concepts of the research. "This is not a catalog that includes the stories of each of the participants. It's a visual narrative, an artistic creation in which I will present my interpretation of what happened in the workshops," explains Gloria.