05 November, 2025
A painting of Jesus Christ is reflected by the window in Los Patios, Norte de Santander, Colombia. Placed by the photographer’s late grandfather, it is the sole male presence remaining inside grandmother Orfelina’s home.
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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