The house built by my grandparents, Lina and Gennaro, Italian immigrants who arrived in Buenos Aires in the mid-20th century, was once the family home where my father, Hugo, was born and—in part—where I also grew up. Inside, memories were forged that resonate in my mind, a past that, like the walls of the house, has crumbled over time. Today, none of them are with me anymore, and the house has become a pure ruin, a skeleton of what was once a home.
As a witness to the passage of time, I reflect on the memory of places, family memories, and their fragility. With a delicate gesture, almost a caress, I transfer, through touch, the images from the family album to the rubble. It’s a way of resisting, of reliving a fading past, of honoring a memory that—like the ruins—is on the verge of disappearing, transforming debris into amulets. Like the chaos of debris, my memory is made of fragments that, as they fade, remind me of the transience of what we’ve experienced. There is no permanence, only transformation. There is no preservation, only metamorphosis.
