The POY Latam awards judging was public to the people. The organizers transmitted the deliberation via YouTube. This experience was formative for me because I got to see and hear the jury's comments and opinions in the recording a day after the verdict came out. The jury was composed by a diverse set of photography professionals: Maíra Gamarra (Brazil), Nelson Garrido (Venezuela), Angela Berlinde (Portugal), Jorge Panchoaga (Colombia), Koral Carballo (México) and Tiago Santana (Brazil).
I was honored with the "Our Gaze" award and an honorable mention in the "Gender and Identity" category.
The body of work "Hold My Hand" received an honorable mention among other photographers such as Johanna Alarcón, Andrés Juárez, Karla Gachet and Jorge Mónaco. First place was given to Silvana Flores. The project "Hold My Hand" explores through traditional documentary photography and visual metaphors the legal status of abortion in Venezuela, one of the five countries in the region that still prohibit this procedure.
It has been very humbling to receive this award among other artists such as Carolina Zambrano, Santiago Escobar-Jaramillo, Cyro Almeida e Mestre Julio Santos, César Rodríguez and Sofía López in May. I began the analogue documentary photography project "Mango Season" in 2020 just as the pandemic started. It speaks about food insecurity in Venezuela from a perspective that aims to show how people strive to live a dignified life in a country with a deep economic, social and political crisis.