Growing up in Switzerland, Constance Jaeggi’s journey from a suburban area of central Europe to the rural grasslands of Texas was guided by what she describes as an “unexplainable fascination” with horses. She moved to the U.S. to pursue a competitive riding career and attend university, eventually becoming a rancher and essentially revolving her entire life around the gentle giants.
“Throughout college, I was spending all my weekends and free time on horseback,” Jaeggi tells Colossal. Over time, she was drawn to exploring horse culture through visual means, picking up a camera and documenting the animals, people, and landscapes around her. “I was curious about the age-old human-horse relationship and how that impacts humans’ relationship with horses today,” she adds. “Photography was a way to lean into that curiosity and express myself differently.”
While attending rodeos and traveling throughout the western community, Jaeggi became acquainted with the custom of escaramuza. It’s the only female event of the Mexican national sport charrería, and the activity combines equestrian and livestock competitions like roping and working with cattle.
Escaramuza, which translates to “skirmish,” was inspired by the women soldiers, or soldaderas, of the Mexican Revolution in the early 20th century and contemporary narratives like “La Adelita.” Teams traditionally consist of 16 women, with eight competing at a time for a maximum of eight minutes. Carrying out elaborately choreographed dances in vibrant, traditional, handmade Mexican dresses, escaramuzas ride sidesaddle and are judged on their synchronicity, precision, garments, and elegance.
“When the Cowgirl Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, approached me about creating a photo exhibition on the escaramuza tradition, I knew very little about it other than the beauty of the dresses and elegant performance aspect of it,” Jaeggi says. “As I started researching, I was captivated by the history of the tradition, the gender dynamics within charrería, how those are evolving, and the stories of the contemporary riders I spoke to.”
The oral histories of the women she met form the foundation for Jaeggi’s ongoing series, Escaramuza, the Poetics of Home, which is on view now at the Poetry Foundation in Chicago. “I wasn’t initially sure how, but I knew I needed to bring their voices back into the work somehow,” the artist says.
Jaeggi chronicled teams in Illinois, Colorado, Texas, Washington, Idaho, Georgia, California, Oregon, Iowa, and Arizona, interviewing riders as she went. During the journey, she met two poets, ire’ne lara silva and Angelina Sáenz, whose poems accompany the images and take inspiration from the women’s stories.
“Poetry felt like a good way to really emphasize some of the strong themes that came out of my conversations with the riders, and Angelina and ire’ne were in a good position to understand and relate to the cultural background of these women,” Jaeggi says.
Escaramuza, the Poetics of Home centers portraits of Mexican-American women in full regalia, highlighting colorful, coordinated dresses and their iconic wide-brimmed sombreros. Jaeggi portrays empowered, strong, and resilient individuals who balance numerous responsibilities. “A lot of the women I met are full time students or have full time jobs—sometimes multiple jobs—and are raising children,” Jaeggi says.
The sport is also dangerous. Competitors perform intense and complicated maneuvers, criss-crossing one another at high speed, which riding side-saddle makes even more challenging because the person only has control of one side of the horse.
“There is a narrative around immigration and the role it plays in the development of the sport in the U.S.,” Jaeggi says, sharing that as she spoke to these women, learning about their work and lives, many shared experiences of “not feeling Mexican enough when traveling to Mexico but not feeling American enough at home either.” And as a gendered event governed by strict charrería rules, many experience frustration at the rigidity of the dress code they’re required to adhere to, which is not the case for male charros.
Exacaramuza, the Poetics of Home continues in Chicago through August 23. Find more on Jaeggi’s website and Instagram.
