Sites (2001). Dwelling
in-between territories
This project is composed of ten photographs, which
constitute ten different sites. Each site was constructed
by projecting an image from Monterrey - the city
where I grew up in Mexico - onto objects in each
room of the apartment where I lived in New York
City at the time. This process allowed me to address
the sense of duality and displacement experienced
by the contemporary nomad as he or she tries to
assimilate into the surrogate home while having
to deal with the positively idealized or hated images
of the homeland left behind. The photographs in
sites do not attempt to approach migration from
a nostalgic point of view, but rather from the anxious,
and slightly neurotic, state that the search for
home in a foreign territory produces. As a consequence,
the series of photographs does not create a narrative;
rather each photograph is self contained and fragmented.
They do not add up to a coherent picture of the
represented domestic space.
The projected images from Mexico are postcard-like
depictions of Monterrey. They focus on the icons
of the city such as the "Cerro de la Silla"
(Saddle Mountain) or "Fundidora," an abandoned
factory in the centre of the city turned into a
theme park and convention center. These images make
reference to the history of Monterrey, without being
loaded with my attachment to this place. In some
of the final photographs the projection blends seamlessly
with the object while in others the intervention
is more obvious. This inconsistency is meant to
reveal the mechanism of construction of the photographs
and denounce their impossibility beyond the mental
sphere of the displaced individual.
Barkaran, Elazar and Marie-Denise
Shelton, Borders, Exiles, Diasporas, Stanford University
Press,California, 1998
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