DM: Photographs in which the penis is extremely exposed. But I don’t have a problem with that [exclusion], a reflection which stems from the phallocentrism which exists in the homosexual world. I think there are other, more interesting parts of the body, which are also present in the project.
CGA: You have collected religious prints and other icons for many years and, after working with your family albums in Huésped, decided to use your religious archive to reinterpret your photographs in Onán. Religious representations are collaged with the visual culture of BDSM and in this context, anonymity manifests itself in the self-censorship of those who hide their faces for moral reasons. On the other hand, there are also those who use anonymity to eroticise their bodies above their identities. What is the role of the mask in Onán?
DM: Masks are an obsession that has haunted me during my life. They are a constant symbol for understanding that your face doesn’t matter, only you matter. In BDSM practices masks are adopted as a second skin, as another possibility for transformation, and I like playing with that kind of symbolism. Masks give you the possibility to be who you want to be, even for an instant. In this project, the masks open up the possibility of identifying with the person portrayed wearing one.
CGA: Photography is always a mirror for you, a place of encounter with the other. In which photographs have you found your face, your body, when making Onán?
DM: In shadow and light. And objects and fluids are like self-portraits all the time. There is something that my gaze exerts when photographing sheets, my fluids, and my shadow in hotels. It is a genuine trace of knowing that I am there, enjoying the moment, flying over another body. Welcome to Onán, a paradise in flames.
CGA: Why did you choose Onán as the name of your project? What does this biblical character mean to you?
DM: During church visits in my adolescence, the priest emphasised that masturbation is a sin, that you must stay away from such demonic temptations. He referred to onanism as
an interruption to the act of procreation; masturbating was a perversion in which pleasure was to be punished, condemned. Years later, I had a great sexual friend named Onán, who had also had complex experiences with religion.
As a title, Onán is short and powerful. Onán is a man in a biblical passage who masturbated because he couldn’t impregnate his sister-in-law after his brother’s death. He broke the rules and was sentenced to death for rebelling. I think many of us are like him; a body and soul that public opinion condemns for disobeying the binary norms of our societies.
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