DONA ANA, 2022. Tiago Coelho & Ana Sousa Werner.

DONA ANA, 2022. Tiago Coelho & Ana Sousa Werner.

DONA ANA, 2022. Tiago Coelho & Ana Sousa Werner.

DONA ANA, 2022. Tiago Coelho & Ana Sousa Werner.

DONA ANA, 2022. Tiago Coelho & Ana Sousa Werner.

DONA ANA, 2022. Tiago Coelho & Ana Sousa Werner.

DONA ANA, 2022. Tiago Coelho & Ana Sousa Werner.

DONA ANA, 2022. Tiago Coelho & Ana Sousa Werner.

DONA ANA, 2022. Tiago Coelho & Ana Sousa Werner.

Miss Ana in the exhibition "Cartografías Cómplices", MUFF - Festival Internacional de Fotografia de Montevideo. Photography, multimedia installation, book and vídeo. 2017.

Miss Ana in the exhibition "Cartografías Cómplices", MUFF - Festival Internacional de Fotografia de Montevideo. Photography, multimedia installation, book and vídeo. 2017.

Miss Ana in the exhibition "Cartografías Cómplices", MUFF - Festival Internacional de Fotografia de Montevideo. Photography, multimedia installation, book and vídeo. 2017.

Miss Ana in the exhibition "Cartografías Cómplices", MUFF - Festival Internacional de Fotografia de Montevideo. Photography, multimedia installation, book and vídeo. 2017.

Miss Ana in the exhibition "Cartografías Cómplices", MUFF - Festival Internacional de Fotografia de Montevideo. Photography, multimedia installation, book and vídeo. 2017.

Miss Ana in the Ningbo International Photography. China. 2017.

Miss Ana in the Ningbo International Photography. China. 2017.

Miss Ana in the Ningbo International Photography. China. 2017.

Miss Ana in the Ningbo International Photography. China. 2017.

Miss Ana in the Photoquai 05. Musée Du Quai Branly, França. 2015.

Dona Ana en el Encuentros Abiertos - Festival de la Luz. MUMBAT, Tandil, Argentina. 2012.

Dona Ana

The Miss Ana project deals with the story of Ana - a migrant from Pará who, as a teenager, established her life in Rio Grande do Sul, south of Brazil - on her journey to find her family again. An artistic process that has been developed for over 15 years.
Miss Ana started working at my parents' house as a nanny when I was 6 years old. Upon leaving Pará, not knowing how to read or write, she ended up losing contact with her relatives. In 2010, after 40 years without news of the family, she decided it was time to rescue her origins: she would return to her small hometown, Japim (north of Brazil) in hope of seeing her brothers again.
To show the family she had formed in the south, if she met her relatives in the north, she asked me to take a photo with her children and grandchildren. In making this portrait, I realised that her trip was also mine. I ended up accompanying Ana all the way to the anticipated reunion, experiencing and documenting this experience with her.
When publishing a first version of the book, as a small fanzine, Ana complained that there were many blank pages - according to her, I had not told her story completely. So she suggested that she could write on the blank pages herself. Ana then made guidelines with a ruler and wrote her own story.
Since I started capturing the photographs for the project, I tried to conceive a narrative that escaped stereotypes about the theme, building a connection between the past (Ana's memories) and the present (Ana in the South and contemporary Pará). Being a story of love, affection and paths, the work also seeks to touch on the issue of a housemaids in Brazil - assuming the bond I have with Ana, without however escaping the contradictions that this situation can raise.
In 2016 I returned to the north accompanied by a headset with a recording of Ana telling her stories and produced a video reinterpreting the story.