Belén, María Belén
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Curated by Flor Aletta, in collaboration with Verónica Borsani
Translation by Lauta Cizmar, copy editing by Matilde Manicardi
Design by Flor Aletta, cover by Verónica Borsani, image mastery by Bob Lightowler
Current photo of María Belén by Victoria Gesualdi/TELAM
First edition of 400,
ISBN 979-12-81396-04-3
Printed in Italy, September 2025,
Hardcover, GardaGloss Art
21×24 cm / 8.2×9.4 in,
134 pages, 95 photos,
Offset
Archivio della memoria trans
40,00€
by Memory Trans Archive,
Belén, María Belén is a photobook that, through archival photographs, documents and autobiographical texts, narrates the life of María Belén Correa, a leading activist for transgender rights in Argentina and Latin America. Her personal story reflects the history of the LGBTQIA+ community in Latin America and the struggles it faced in the 1980s and 1990s.
Her journey is one of collective struggle for the recognition of trans identities and expressions. Throughout her life, she founded organizations and community groups, achieving laws, improving the quality of life, and creating support networks against the transphobic contexts that persist to this day.
In 2012, María Belén founded the Trans Memory Archive to collect and preserve the life stories of the Argentine trans community, becoming a key reference and collective memory of trans identities.
Belén, María Belén is the winner of the 2025 Andy Rocchelli Grant, an international award promoted by CESURA in memory of its cofounder Andy Rocchelli, killed in a mortar attack in Andreevka, Ukraine, in 2014.
This book is a co-edition between Cesura and the Archivo de la Memoria Trans Argentina, recognizing its political and historical value, so that Belén’s story can also be accessible in Argentina. All copies are hand-bound; therefore, inserts may vary.
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The Trans Memory Archive (AMT as in its Spanish acronym) is a collaborative and independent project managed by transvestites and transgender people from Argentina that gathers images and stories about the recent history of the trans community in Argentina. It is materialized through a digital platform, a photobook and some exhibitions.
The archive currently comprises a collection of more than 15,000 pieces, including digitized analog photographs, digital photographs, videos, newspaper clippings, correspondence, personal diaries, documents -national identity documents, passports, police files-, clothing, objects and testimonies of trans people dating from the early twentieth century to the late 1990s. The oldest archival piece dates back to 1936.
The platform that virtually hosts the archive connects to the project’s social networks and is divided into seven sections: About, Catalog, Videos, Activities, Wikitrans, Publications and Press.
Much of this archive materialized in a book of more than 300 pages with a family album format that includes photos, postcards, documents and clippings that compile joyful moments, intimate memories and family celebrations. The book, curated and narrated by the protagonists themselves, was published by Chaco Editorial. In addition, the AMT was exhibited in several countries and spaces such as the Haroldo Conti Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid and the virtual platform of the Tate Modern Gallery in London.
