There is a moment — quiet, almost imperceptible — when a mind refuses to follow the script it was given and starts to write its own. The photographic exhibition Existir como un Acto de Rebelión (To Exist as an Act of Rebellion) is all about doing something different. It talks about how people can push the limits and create their own stage in life.

In this new series of works, Mexican visual artist Alfonso Ibato focuses on the idea of presence itself — on those who continue to carry autonomy, density, and self-possession in a world designed to shape our behaviour, our desires, and our very sense of who we are.

Ibato’s work is a mix of portraiture, visual essays and research based on images. He looks at who we are, how we act in society, and the body in places made to look very fake — places shaped by media, technology, and a culture that is all about how we look, how we act, and how we are allowed to exist.

What we see is a fight. Ibato is not interested in fantasies that are just for the enjoyment of others; he is interested in people — in the tension between who we are and the characters the world expects us to play. His images mix experimentation, observation and resistance. They challenge simulation, algorithmic flattening and the erosion of real-life experiences into content.

The exhibition Existir como un Acto de Rebelión is about the right to make your own life choices and a reminder that being present, even when everyone around you is trying to erase it, is a form of defiance.