The first project featured is 'New Orleans,' a photo series that emerged in 2018, when I moved to New Orleans from Puerto Rico, after the onslaught of Hurricane Maria. A moment of crisis, however, elucidated many things for me. First, I discovered that home could be far away from my homeland. To live in New Orleans was beautiful because it is an open-hearted city, with a rich culture that people strove to maintain in the face of their own disasters, and it reminded me of home: that is, the Caribbean. It was also the first place where I encountered the Black diaspora, and as an Afro-Caribbean this made a profound impression. I had not been raised there, but I felt welcome, and I believe that complicity was translated in the photographs.The second project, 'Semana Santa, Oaxaca (2018)', is a series of photographs I took during Holy Week, in Oaxaca, Mexico, where I wanted to document the drama and pageantry of the rituals, while also experimenting with night photography.

Past work

“zajorí (puerto rico) — niño inquieto, maleto, majaderozahorí (del árabe زُهَرِيّ zuharī &nbsp;‘geomántico', derivado de الزُهَرَة az-zuhara 'venus', a cuyo influjo atribuían este arte) — persona con la facultad de adivinar lo ocultoMy grandmother would call me that: zajorí. It means, in Puerto Rican vernacular, restless child (I was fussy and annoying and tested her patience). But the root of the word comes from medieval Andalusian: he with the faculty to find what is hidden—"Zajorí is a selection of photographs taken around the world between 2017 and 2024: impressions of things I have seen and filled me with wonder or surprise, whether in my travels or the places I lived. Elizabeth Bishop’s words, in the poem Questions of Travel, became its starting point: “What childishness is it that while there’s breath of life in our bodies, we are determined to rush to see the sun the other way around?”I've picked a few photographs, to give an idea and feel for the project. My aim is to publish Zajorí as my first photobook, and the Imagination Fund would be of great help in making this goal a reality. The Imagination Fund would allow me to make a physical maquette of this project and send it to different publishing houses. More so, it would allow me to make zines of other, smaller photographic projects, such as 'Nueva Orleans and 'Semana Santa, Oaxaca', which in turn would help me raise money for the publication of this photobook. Publishing is an expensive and time-consuming process, so all funds are welcome!

Project Proposal - Zajorí

Hello! My name is Jomar and I'm a 25 year old photographer from Puerto Rico. My work, which sees photography as a poetic medium, is concerned with themes such as ritual, travel, the quotidian, and the documentation of the Black diaspora.

Jomar Canales Conde - Imagination Fund Proposal

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The first project featured is 'New Orleans,' a photo series that emerged in 2018, when I moved to New Orleans from Puerto Rico, after the onslaught of Hurricane Maria. A moment of crisis, however, elucidated many things for me. First, I discovered that home could be far away from my native island. To live in New Orleans was beautiful because it is an open-hearted city, with a rich culture that people strove to maintain in the face of their own disasters, and it reminded me of home: that is, the Caribbean. It was also the first place where I encountered the Black diaspora, and as an Afro-Caribbean this made a profound impression. I had not been raised there, but I felt welcome, and I believe that complicity translated in the photographs.The second project, 'Semana Santa, Oaxaca (2018)', is a series of photographs I took during Holy Week, in Oaxaca, Mexico, where I wanted to document the drama and pageantry of the rituals, while also experimenting with night photography.