15 October, 2025
Nicole (17) was raised by her grandfather when her father abandoned her family. In Colombia, extended families are pivotal in providing shelter and support to unpartnered mothers. This photo was taken in Los Patios, Norte de Santander, Colombia.
Colombia has the world’s highest rate of single mothers. The photographer and his family experience this reality not as a statistic but as a “recurring wound.” In 1999, Ferley Ospina’s father was murdered in the border region of Norte de Santander, forcing him to flee with his mother. Photographing the women in his extended family, Ospina seeks to understand the “weight of absence” and the systemic and personal impact of “growing up incomplete.”
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