By Abigail Glasgow, Photo: Camila Falquez, The Guardian, July 4, 2022
Camila Falquez has photographed many of the most famous people in the world: Zendaya, Lil Nas X, Penélope Cruz. But her portraiture intentionally straddles two worlds: one of global stars and the other of local community leaders, from drag queens to flower merchants, whom she deems “the gods that walk among us”.
It’s a phrase she first discovered the phrase on a sign in Bushwick, Brooklyn, that featured photos of Indigenous people. “When I saw it I thought, ‘Oh wait, this is what I do, this is my work.’ It’s an invitation to change the orientation on how we perceive who we have around us – and a warning that the person you might be dismissing or mistreating is a god or a queen.” She made the phrase the title of her debut solo exhibition at Hannah Traore Gallery in Manhattan.
The gods that walk among us are people like Maria Antonia “Toñita” Cay, who came to Manhattan from Puerto Rico at 15 and owns the longest-standing Latino social club in the otherwise gentrified Williamsburg neighborhood. Toñita can be found in the Caribbean Social Club almost every night, her hands layered in clunky rings, surrounded by a gaggle of large men, feeding her community and, when necessary, kicking people out of her bar.
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