NAMo
5. Don’t call me water, call me Teresa
From a fluid geography of matriarchy through autoethnography
This project explores my own matriline through an autoethnographic lens, tracing a fluid geography shaped by matriarchal experiences. The title, Don’t Call Me Water, Call Me Teresa, is a tribute to my great-grandmother Teresa—the last woman in my maternal lineage I had the chance to know. Like her, many women in my family led woman-headed households, a demographic that represents nearly half of all families in Colombia.
The project critically examines the hyper-romanticization surrounding these women. Often praised for their strength and sacrifice, this narrative can overshadow other dimensions of their lives, particularly the intergenerational transmission of knowledge rooted in domestic and ancestral practices.
One such story is that of my grandmother, who built her house by collecting stones from a nearby river. In the project, the river’s water becomes a metaphor and a material transformation: from liquid corn starch, traditionally used in domestic cooking, to a solid bioplastic, reframing recipes as design processes and sites of resilience.