"Until the Corn Grows Back" is a long-term documentary project, developed between 2018 and 2025, exploring the relationship between land, food, and survival in Indigenous Mayan communities in Guatemala, a country where one in two children suffers from chronic malnutrition, the highest rate in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Subsistence agriculture, the backbone of rural life, is increasingly threatened by prolonged droughts, wildfires, and soil exhaustion. Maize, central to Mayan cosmovision as a source of life and identity, lies at the heart of this fragile balance. When crops fail, the consequences extend far beyond hunger: chronic malnutrition affects children from the earliest years of life, shaping their development and limiting their future opportunities. As droughts intensify and water sources recede, many families leave their land to take on precarious seasonal work in coffee and sugar cane plantations. These conditions are part of a longer history of marginalization, with limited access to land, healthcare, education, and political representation.
Yet alongside this crisis, another story is unfolding. Over seven years, the work has evolved with the communities themselves. What began as a documentation of hunger and environmental stress has opened onto responses emerging from within, rooted in Mayan cosmovision and a close relationship with the land. Women-led collectives are recovering ancestral crops such as amaranth, protecting native seeds, and developing agroecological practices that restore degraded soils. As pressure on global food systems grows, these locally grounded responses carry a different kind of knowledge: one that has endured, adapted, and continues to be reclaimed.
Author biography
Born in Madrid in 1988, Lys Arango studied International Relations and Journalism before turning to documentary photography. For over a decade, her work has focused on food insecurity and food sovereignty, examining the structural forces that shape hunger, including climate change, conflict, and inequality.
Her work has been published in international media and exhibited worldwide. She is a National Geographic Explorer and a member of VU' Agency. Her work has received several awards, including the POYi Environmental Vision Award and the Prix Terre Solidaire 2025.