Jasmin Mara Lopez on Gozo, an island she visits for joy and healing on her journey as a survivor. The island's name translates to joy.

Jasmin Mara López

New Orleans, LA

Jasmin Mara López is a journalist, audio producer, and filmmaker based in New Orleans, LA. Born in the U.S. with familial roots in Mexico, her childhood was affected by issues experienced on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. This instilled in her a strong passion for immigrant rights, youth empowerment, and social change. In 2007, López founded Project Luz, a project that teaches youth in Mexico to document stories within their communities. In 2015, she was awarded the Society of Professional Journalists’s Excellence in Journalism Award for her documentary Deadly Divide: Migrant Death on the Border. She teaches radio to youth in Nezahualcóyotl and Coxcatlán, Mexico. In addition to receiving support from Creative Capital, Silent Beauty was awarded the 2019 Artist Residency and Fellowship at Ragdale, where López developed the installation and shared her process with local schools in the Chicago area. Silent Beauty was also accepted into the Chicken & Egg Pictures Accelerator Lab.


Silent Beauty


Jasmin Mara López is a journalist, audio producer, and filmmaker based in New Orleans, LA, with familial roots in Mexico.

Artist Bio

Silent Beauty is a personal documentary about Jasmin López’s family’s history with child sexual abuse and a culture of silence. The work extends as an audio-visual installation that features the voices of dozens of survivors—adults and older children with parents—that have reached out to the artist to share their stories.

Silent Beauty premiered virtually and in-person at BlackStar Film Festival on August 5, 2022, an annual celebration of the visual and storytelling traditions of the African diaspora and of global Indigenous communities, showcasing films by Black, Brown and Indigenous artists from around the world.


Award Year
2020
Status

Completed