Ihad been working in Mexico City for a few years when I took this in 2022. I was shooting for my new book, No Mames, a collection of photographs taken across five years in the city. During that time, I went back and forth between New York and Mexico. I met new people, I fell in love, and I found connections from one person to another. I mostly photographed the queer and trans community. Everyone in this photo is either a musician, a designer or an artist. I think capturing joy is really important because it gives not only hope but also inspiration for how to live in a country that is still violent to queer and trans people. I had the idea of creating an empty house party – when you move out of a place and on the last day you throw a party for your friends. I found this house for sale on a real estate website and I rented it for the day. When we got there it was way better than it looked in the photos. The furniture was already there; we spaced it out a little. There was a room full of Jewish books and a mezuzah on the door. I’m Jewish but my experience in Mexico is not a Jewish one as it’s a mostly Christian country. So this house was perfect, both the look of it and then all of these elements that reminded me of home. It was like a magical add-on. We arrived in the morning and my friend Hugo Matula set up a room to do makeup and hair. I was also working in collaboration with another friend, Esteban Tamayo, who runs the Mexican fashion company Tiempos – and we set up a clothing rack with items from the brand. We let people play around with the clothing and express themselves. The clothes are super colourful, as were the characters which we created throughout the day. We started by doing portraits and later I gathered everyone for a group photo. We played music and had drinks. It turned into a party naturally because everyone knew each other. I wanted to keep it very bare, to have this feeling of taking over an abandoned house and doing whatever you wanted in it. There are real couples in this photo. My approach to shooting real love is that there’s an eternal feeling to it. It can be romantic love, best friend love, or sibling and family love. Even if you break up everyone stays in each other’s hearts in some way, like exchanging particles. On the left of the couch are a lesbian couple, Angelica and Cons: they’re some of the first people I met in Mexico City. They work and live together and they have a really sweet relationship and really lift each other up. The other couple on the same couch are Jorge and Danika: they’re funny, cool people who work in music and fashion. The third couple aren’t actually a couple but they’re best friends. The guy at the back is a photographer with the best smile in the world: Joaquin. He’s holding a basketball I picked up at Esteban’s that morning because my nickname for him is “basketball”. The woman on the right couch is Cosima, a friend. At the end of the day when it was dark, we went up to the roof and I brought out some colourful lights. We had music, we were dancing, we got drinks from the 7-Eleven, people were still kissing and partying, and I took more photos. With a lot of photos in the book, I look back on them and I’m like: “Wow, this is my life.” I don’t look at it as a project or an assignment. It’s really how I and those people felt that day. I remember snippets of being in that room, like what we did there and what we drank. It’s all about the experience, and the shared time together. It goes back to the idea of capturing something in an eternal sense: I want to feel that those moments are not going away. They were feelings and moments that happened. I was there, and I want to remember and extend them. Mayan Toledano’s No Mames is out now, published by Damiani books. Mayan Toledano’s CV Born: Haifa, Israel Trained: “I never studied photography. My uncle gave me a camera from a flea market and I started shooting. For me, photography is not a technical form – it’s more of an experience.” Influences: “The people I shoot, they make the photo. I see each photo as a window into someone’s world. High point: “Last year, I released my first film, Smadar, which was about spending a week with a woman who I’ve known my whole life. Another highlight is releasing this book, No Mames.” Low point: “I don’t think there is one. I can’t look back and complain. I’ve had such beautiful moments that I could never have imagined having in my life.” Top tip: “Try to create something you truly believe in. Don’t follow trends. Try to search for something that is really significant to you and keep doing it.”