Simulating Sight and Reclaiming Memory: Ana Alesanco’s Photographic Reimagining of Her Mother’s Blindness in Magna
Presentation Type
Event
Start Date
8-3-2026 4:34 PM
Description
This presentation focuses on Magna, a photobook by Spanish photographer Ana Alesanco, in which she visually simulates how her mother—legally blind due to a late-diagnosed degenerative eye condition—might perceive the world. Through carefully constructed images marked by blur, desaturation, and fluctuating focus, Alesanco speculates about her mother’s sensory experience, layering both women’s perspectives within a single frame. What makes Magna especially compelling is its intergenerational relationship with photography. Before losing her sight, Alesanco’s mother used photography to document family life, creating a visual archive for her daughter. Now, her access to those images depends increasingly on memory. In Magna, Alesanco reverses this act: she uses photography to offer her mother a simulated way of seeing, constructing images that can be mentally reconstructed through shared affective memory. This paper explores how Magna challenges visual norms shaped by the medical gaze and patriarchal authority, replacing them with a feminist, empathic, and speculative gaze. Informed by Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag, I argue that Alesanco’s work refuses narratives of blindness as absence, instead using simulation to reimagine the female gaze through intimacy and narrative resistance. The medical humanities in photography is still an emerging field in contemporary Spain, and Magna exemplifies its critical potential. Ultimately, the photobook positions photography not just as a record of the visible, but as a tool to reclaim memory and expand what—and how—we are allowed to see.
Edurne Carmona’s research and teaching interests span a diverse array of topics within the realms of health humanities, visual studies, and women’s studies. She focuses particularly on the representation of health disparities through visual media, such as photography and graphic narratives, with a distinct emphasis on amplifying the voices of women and migrant communities in the Hispanic world. She graduated with a PhD in Spanish from Arizona State University, currently works as an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Coastal Carolina University (U.S.)
Relational Format
Conference proceeding
Recommended Citation
de Heredia Carmona, Edurne Beltran, "Simulating Sight and Reclaiming Memory: Ana Alesanco’s Photographic Reimagining of Her Mother’s Blindness in Magna" (2026). Women of Photography: A 24-Hour Conference-a-thon Celebrating International Women’s Day. 40.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/womenofphotography/2026/schedule/40
Simulating Sight and Reclaiming Memory: Ana Alesanco’s Photographic Reimagining of Her Mother’s Blindness in Magna
This presentation focuses on Magna, a photobook by Spanish photographer Ana Alesanco, in which she visually simulates how her mother—legally blind due to a late-diagnosed degenerative eye condition—might perceive the world. Through carefully constructed images marked by blur, desaturation, and fluctuating focus, Alesanco speculates about her mother’s sensory experience, layering both women’s perspectives within a single frame. What makes Magna especially compelling is its intergenerational relationship with photography. Before losing her sight, Alesanco’s mother used photography to document family life, creating a visual archive for her daughter. Now, her access to those images depends increasingly on memory. In Magna, Alesanco reverses this act: she uses photography to offer her mother a simulated way of seeing, constructing images that can be mentally reconstructed through shared affective memory. This paper explores how Magna challenges visual norms shaped by the medical gaze and patriarchal authority, replacing them with a feminist, empathic, and speculative gaze. Informed by Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag, I argue that Alesanco’s work refuses narratives of blindness as absence, instead using simulation to reimagine the female gaze through intimacy and narrative resistance. The medical humanities in photography is still an emerging field in contemporary Spain, and Magna exemplifies its critical potential. Ultimately, the photobook positions photography not just as a record of the visible, but as a tool to reclaim memory and expand what—and how—we are allowed to see.
Edurne Carmona’s research and teaching interests span a diverse array of topics within the realms of health humanities, visual studies, and women’s studies. She focuses particularly on the representation of health disparities through visual media, such as photography and graphic narratives, with a distinct emphasis on amplifying the voices of women and migrant communities in the Hispanic world. She graduated with a PhD in Spanish from Arizona State University, currently works as an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Coastal Carolina University (U.S.)