Jose is comprised of a video and a series of 22 photographs which have all been conceived from a collage. It relates the last years of the life of Jusef Behaine Gataz, the last living grandfather that I had and with whom I spent a long time listening to his limitless imaginary and silent world provoked by the Alzheimer disease. Jose represents the profound desire to freeze the present, to contemplate life, death and decadence from the perspective of oblivion. It was the perfect excuse to enter into a profound exercise of self-observation.
The realization of the project depends exclusively on the use of documental photography and ambient sounds. The video takes form thanks to the movement within the collage, discovering textures, exalting frames that tell fragments of stories. All of this, accompanied by a track of broken accordion and the voice of one of his sons who whispers his story. More than two thousands layers of photographs are printed and overprinted in a way that mimics the passing of time and the role of memory. It reminds us that the impermanence of everything is what allows us to see us as alive and understand that we are not alone.
The conscience of the non-verbal language and the silences which made up our main mode of communication, made me realize that what I was really looking for, was to encounter the Other from a place of solitude. The rapid breathings that can be heard in the video are not his but mine. They are my own desperate breathings motivated by a strong will to understand his life, his twenty years of silence and his small living space that was so full of him.
Work made of: 1 video and 22 photographs
Location: San Bernardo del Viento-Colombia
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