Thousands of people in Peru are in limbo, waiting for news of their missing loved ones. They are suspended between life and death: not able to mourn or move forward.

For these families, absence is a suffocating presence. Twenty or thirty years may have passed without them being able to breathe.

This exhibition makes their pain visible, exploring the memories, resilience, and creativity of families when a loved one goes missing. Through Laia Abril’s work in Peru, it digs deep into what it means to long for, to search for, and to wait for, a missing mother, father, sister or brother.

Almost 20,000 families are missing their relatives in Peru, joining the hundreds of thousands of people missing around the world. Whether this is due to conflict, or migration, or natural disaster, the story of each missing person is a story of uncertainty and searching, for those left behind.

Searching for answers is fundamental. For over 100 years the ICRC has supported the right of families to know. Finding out the fate of missing people, today or in ten years’ time, is a humanitarian act and a legal right.