Who will dwell this place and wander through an empty house?
by Gabriela Álvarez

portfolio shortlisted call 'BLURRING THE LINES 2023', 2023

I photograph fragments of the landscape, searching for identification in the dark and dramatic depiction of the natural world. My images are invariably enveloped by an obscure atmosphere; in them, I see the representation of my own recurrences, metaphors to talk about the issues that obsess me: death and degradation; the tension between light and shadow; the struggle between movement and stillness. I am constantly negotiating with the excessive certainty of death, and the phrase “Loss is the tune of our age” (R. Macfarlane) resonates in my head like a mantra. I think there is a poetic power in the relationship between the intimate (my anguish) and the environmental (an era of loss). In the midst of anguish, I let myself be carried away by the impulse to insist. Before the abyss of definitive darkness, there is meaning and possibility.

PORTFOLIO STATEMENT:
Threatened by the ever-expanding presence of human, in this home of a million creatures - real and mythical - all is in danger of extinction. Its fragile systems and all its mysteries are at risk; no resilience is enough in a time of depredation... I hear the world’s collective scream, the broken voice of land eroded by a profound and all-encompassing pain. Pain that manifests with violent rage. Pain that is suffered in desolated silence. Pain that runs deep below the surface, that floats light in the wind, and that is rooted. There is no isolation for what is a whole; there is only unity, common loss... Loss is the language of an agonizing planet... And the wounds will be inherited, and the grief will be total. What will be when all is lost? Who will dwell in this place and wander through an empty house? The many worlds inside the world. The many things we can’t account for. We will lose the unspoken words, the secrets, and the yet unimagined... I join the cry of the forests. I despair with the bodies of water. I fight for air and to break free and to die with dignity. I am in pain, and I am tired. I am broken-hearted. We are one with our world’s agony. Nature’s suffering is our own.



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