Photographer Statement
To the Tzeltal people, to look toward the new year is to aim for the mountain’s peak. Living in this vertical world, the reality of time is carved into the earth, with the past forming the foundation upon which it stands, and the future a destination to climb toward. The Chiapas highlands ascend time with the growth of corn, as the cycle of the season turns, and the heavy burden of generations—rulers and the ruled—merges into a single, revolving life rhythm—a ritual journey that circles the boundaries between the mythological and the present. In the highlands, the landscape is not merely a backdrop for Maya history but the physical embodiment of time itself—layered, recurring, and forever uphill.
The Mesoamerican mountains—volcanic peaks, valleys, and cloud forests from the Valley of Mexico to the Mayan Altos—form a landscape deeply intertwined with memory, especially for Tzotzil-Maya communities near San Cristóbal, Chamula, Zinacantán, and beyond. From this cultural center, the project explores how the land’s physical features—fields, slopes, village streets—shape community perceptions and stories through the passage of time.
I see form as a living interface: a photograph functions as a deliberate boundary that can both reveal and conceal, capturing a moment frozen in time while inviting a broader understanding of temporality. In this way, each frame becomes a site where the local is made legible through light, gesture, and material culture—the pattern of weavings on a loom, the curve of a laboring hand, the architecture of wood and stone, and the distance between mountains and memory.
The project unfolds through a dialogue that emphasizes time as a constructed yet living dimension. The work challenges linear narratives of tradition and change, instead proposing a continuum where landscape, language, and people shape meaning across generations. Form, time, and space are not external entities to be captured but co-creators of perception—each frame contributing to a collective sense of place that is tangible, contested, and alive.
Bio
Cory Zimmerman | Visual Author, Multimedia Journalist& Fine Art Photographer<>
Cory Zimmerman is an independent multimedia journalist and fine art photographer focused on the lives and landscapes of those affected by displacement and the many challenges that accompany life on the peripheries of society. He has worked in India, Thailand, Japan, the Philippines, Peru, Mexico, and extensively in the Central American Highlands, where he has traveled with refugee caravans migrating north toward the US border. Most recently, he has initiated a project in Iceland and Chile to document the climate crisis in coastal regions.<>
BIO<>
Cory Zimmerman is a lyrical documentarian, conceptual artist, and visceral witness of the Social & Natural Ecology and Spatial Cognition of the Periphery. His longform projects meditate on the longitudinal and cultural impacts of environmental factors and populations surviving at the intersections of social marginality and geographic extremity through a poetic lens. His multimodal practice integrates high-fidelity photography with acoustic ecology and an ethnographic, longform-prose to preserve the sensual heritage of these threshold spaces.<>
With over 12 years of field experience, Zimmerman’s practice is defined by deep time engagement. His portfolio includes a seven-year longitudinal documentation investigating the causes of migration in the Northern Triangle of Central America, as well as recent research into the relationship between the Maya of Chiapas and the spatial geography of the southern Mexico highlands, and the maritime ecologies of Iceland and Chile. He has documented critical humanitarian narratives for global organizations such as Feed the Children, Primeros Pasos, ASSADE, and international clinical missions, as well as independent documentations, across a diverse global landscape, including the Americas, South and East Asia, and Southeast Asia. His practice is defined by an immersive, "Dignity-First" methodology with robust ethical safeguards that enable him to navigate high-sensitivity environments, from documenting rescue efforts after the 2017 Mexico City earthquake to following Central American migrant caravans into isolated indigenous territories. His long-term project on the Maya of the Guatemalan Highlandswas recently featured alongside his documentation of the Migrant Caravansin a solo exhibition and public presentation at a Contemporary Art Center in the US, accompanied by two photobooks that highlight the systemic drivers of displacement. He is a proponent of Digital Sovereignty, ensuring that the communities he documents retain agency over their visual archives for their own advocacy and preservation.His work has been featured in leading photography and documentary publications, including ZEKE Magazine, Musée Magazine, and Feature Shoot.<>
Born and raised in the midwestern United States, Zimmerman began his career traveling through all 48 lower states before expanding his research internationally to the Himalayas, Japan, and the South China Sea. He holds a diverse educational background, having studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Santa Fe University of Art and Design, Southern Illinois University, the University of New Mexico, and the University of Iowa, where he explored the intersections of photography, filmmaking, and creative writing. Since 2017, he has lived in Mexico City, where he studied Spanish at UNAM, and became a permanent resident in 2022. He currently lives in CDMX with his Cuban Canary Clyde, while maintaining a field focus on the maritime ecology of the Chilean Maritorio.<>
A vetted professional in humanitarian documentation, Zimmerman holds an International Press Card (IPC) from the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), is an active member of the National Writers Union (NWU)and the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), is UN BSAFE, and HEAT certified (Hostile Environment Awareness Training). He remains available for exhibitions, global assignments, and organizational collaborations. His work is held in a private archive, representing over a decade of immersive research and poetic witness.<>
ARTIST STATEMENT<>
THE LYRICAL DOCUMENTATION OF SOCIAL & NATURAL ECOLOGY<>
“My work explores the intersections of social marginality, deep time, and sensory heritage. Utilizing photography as a tool for mapping spatial cognition, I seek to visualize the subconscious terrain formed at the intersection of geographic isolation and collective memory.”<>
Through a poetic lens, my practice explores the liminality of survival. I am drawn to the ‘periphery’"those social and environmental edges where the land is most raw and the resilience of the human spirit is most visible, yet most vulnerable to erasure. My work operates at the intersection of journalism and fine art, documenting the Social and Natural Ecology of the Periphery. Using a minimalist, typology-led ‘lyrical-documentary’ aesthetic, I seek to create a ‘Visual Arrest’"forcing the viewer to linger on the immense scale of the ‘in-between’ and the ‘slow violence’ of environmental and social shifts. By integrating high-fidelity photography, acoustic ecology, and ethnographic prose, I seek to capture the quiet, monumental tension of threshold spaces, where migration, displacement, and social injustices most often occur. My optical and sonic lens is not a tool of observation but an instrument for gathering visual and sensory evidenceof the challenges that accompany life on the peripheries of society. Through portraiture and landscape photography, I investigate the human condition as an extension of the environment, capturing the quiet dignity of those navigating these geographic and social thresholds. This multimodal documentation is guided by a ‘Dignity-First’ methodology, committed to the ethics of representation, trauma-aware journalism, and to the digital sovereignty of the communities existing at the planet’s extreme geographic margins.<>
