“Memory is imagined; it is not real. Don’t be ashamed of its need to create; it is the loveliest part of your heart. Myth is the true history. Don’t let them tell you that there are no monsters. Don’t let them make you feel stupid, just because you are happy to play down in the dark with your flashlight. The mystical world depends on you and your tolerance for the absurd. Be strong, my darling ones, and believe!”
Nick Cave, The Sick Bag Song
I didn’t just move to a different country, but to another continent. All of us coming from different countries are in search of something inexplicable, secretive, and elusive. Migration deals with economic indicators, political or personal stories and many other factors, while I picture the irrational, the absurd, and the illusion or possibility of personal freedom that this phenomenon gives.
The country I chose is oneiric and looks more like a tale than a real cartographic place. The “Sea Closes at Four” is a nonlinear visual tale on displacement, the perception of the “New World” and imagination.
My work draws inspiration from the Latin American literary tradition of magical realism, where magical aspects are inherent part of reality. As writers do not create new worlds, but work with the real one and integrate magical elements as part of reality, I construct images from the scenes of real life events and use them as a stage. I am the director, the actor and the viewer. Through these different roles, the work gives me the opportunity to play with reality and fiction. Images are like symbolic acts, orientating me in absurdity. The need to control the unknown led me to stage everything, so I can have control at least “inside the frame” as a counterbalance of uncertainty.