Jenea Sanchez’s The Mexican Woman's Post-Apocalyptic Survival Guide in the Southwest: Food, Clothing, Shelter, y La Migra is a multiphase series consisting of large format photographs, printed on aluminum, of women who live in Agua Prieta, Sonora and who are members of the collective, DouglaPrieta Trabajan. In each of the works the viewer is met head on with the gaze of the woman in the portrait, through which Sanchez constructs a dynamic link between viewer and subject. One in which the viewer occupies the same plane as each woman depicted, a purposeful shift by the artist from a gaze that objectifies to a gaze built on connection. Through direct representation Sanchez eschews the more figurative aspects of portraiture, and instead focuses on challenging the cultural, political, and even economic conditions under which identity is constructed. 

Sanchez first met the women in the summer of 2015 working on a commissioned mural at Colonia Ladrillo in Agua Prieta, Sonora where the women reside and work. While working around them that summer, the artist was met with a powerful desire to document their work and their stories. They had left an indelible mark by welcoming her into their homes and sharing their organization’s mission, spurring the creation of this series of portraits in 2017. Specific events that year forced the artist to conceptualize ideas around reverse migration. In a sporadic moment of science-fiction ‘what-if’ contemplation, she pondered who she would seek out should the world go to pieces. Her first thought was these women she aspired to be, who have honed skills that have skipped generations and have built a pathway to their own futurity and that of their communities.