Lugones notes how coloniality constructed the inferiority of women removing them “from communities in which they held positions of political and spiritual power” (as cited in Cornejo 2014, p.144). In the photographs these communities are symbolized by the ruda branch, a plant understood to have strong healing, protective, and spiritual qualities in the Americas. My mum carries this knowledge through her as she plants the ruda in various pots throughout the house and carefully tends to them to ensure they thrive in the vastly unpredictable Melbourne/Narrm climate.

The photographs also develop feminist theory by rendering visible the forced displacement of Central American diaspora (as forcibly displaced) outside of the Americas, referenced by the pile of books beside the subject. Feminist knowledge is translated through text when women of color books become one’s living community within displacement: the pile of books, ranging from the Spanish-English dictionary, to Nidia Diaz’s I was never alone: a prison diary dairy from El Salvador (1992), along with Blak feminist writings such as Talkin‘ Up to the White Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism (Moreton-Robinson 2000), signify ways of accessing and sharing feminist lived experiences.²

²  Blak denotes First People’s and Aboriginal Feminism in the context of Australia.