From Letters to Home
CONTEXT
Juliana Muniz is an artist and documentarian living and working in Rochester NY. Her compassion and desire to tell deeply personal stories fuels her intimate documentary style. A sense of beauty and the ability to capture moments of lightness balances a proclivity toward darker subject matter. While her work is essentially about people, the artist’s biography is inevitably intertwined, revealing itself through the process of storytelling and documenting over periods of time.
Excerpts of letters to family from Oneida and Elmira Correctional Facilities between 2010 and 2014.
K.H. was arrested in 2009 at the age of 19 for 2 nd degree attempted robbery. He was released on parole but violated and was sent back to prison to complete his sentence. He wrote, “I’m sorry that I keep doing this to you guys and it’s not intentional it’s just I don’t know. Whenever I get the chance to enjoy my life I go for it because I’ve lost so much opportunity.”
As I read through the letters, passages that speak to the experience of being trapped and the loss of control over fulfilling one’s basic human needs stood out.
Juliana Muniz is an artist and documentarian living and working in Rochester NY. Her compassion and desire to tell deeply personal stories fuels her intimate documentary style. A sense of beauty and the ability to capture moments of lightness balances a proclivity toward darker subject matter. While her work is essentially about people, the artist’s biography is inevitably intertwined, revealing itself through the process of storytelling and documenting over periods of time.