Her work

Photography and literary autofiction are Elena's answer to an existential terror of forgetting. With both she embraces the figure of the palimpsest. They serve as canvases where the present is constantly overwritten by the past. History—former identities, fractured relationships, fleeting intimacies—resurfaces and refuses to vanish.

Born in Tijuana, at the semiotic clash of cultures and languages, she grew up without the feeling of belonging. As an artist based in Montréal, immersed in a bilingual city where neither of its languages are hers, she circles back to the spaces in-between, constantly navigating physical, emotional and linguistic borders.

She has kept a journal since she was a teenager. The photography came later, in young adulthood, first on digital and now on film. Living in a constant act of translation—not just of her language, but herself—she is captivated by observation and the quiet intimacy of being seen, painfully aware of the transgression of her own gaze: photographing strangers from afar and writing about those close to her. Rather than soften it, she uses the imperfections of analog film and strips her prose bare, for a raw and brutal honesty.

She can be reached at elena.jacobo@pm.me.