Antonio Turok captures the human condition in Mexico and Central America. In indigenous spirituality, the eclipse marks a time of uncertainty, specifically potential danger with those carrying children. Bird migrations are known within these cultures to protect those on their journey into the wilderness. In the photo, the birds are flying over and past the wrought fence. The softness of the grayscale is ghostly, there is a longing for another time and place that no longer exists. Turok captures the tension of those who grieve a lost home, navigating a present uncertainty and an intergenerational fear, yet they carry on – tears in their eyes – with a hope of a better world.
Turok expresses his personal accounts and memories of living in the southern Mexican state. In Chiapas: End of Silence, Turok explores the political and cultural facets of Chiapas. Turok uses photography as a means to portray the many different lives that exist in Chiapas and create an effect similar to a hall of mirrors. The overarching theme that Turok is weaving throughout all of his works is the intergenerational trauma in Mexico. He covers the uprising in 1994 by the Zapatista Army which is the most recent example of the indigenous peoples search for a peaceful settlement. Eclipse II represents a smaller branch of a larger systemic struggle for independence and is shaped by the grief of native Mayans.
Description written by Ethan Garcia and Yuki Ellefson, 2025.