Description of the Work of Art

Poem by Roberto Juarroz in its original version (Quinzième poésie verticale. P.47-48) followed by the description of the work of art in english 

Hay que dejar que se forme en uno mismo 
el negativo de su imagen,
las sombras y los claros cambiados,
los sentidos cambiados,
los abismos cambiados. 

Hay que dejar que aflore en uno mismo
la inversión de su imagen,
para poder verse de otro modo,
parar mirar las cosas de otro modo. 

Hay que dejar que surja en uno mismo
la forma libre de su imagen,
que acople sus imágenes virtuales,
junto con sus imágenes perdidas
y haga un ramo de todas sus imágenes. 

Las imágenes que tenemos no nos sirven.
Se desarman como una tela sin marco,s
e desploma como espejo de polvo en la muerte. 

Hay que obtener el propio negativo
y en vez de revelarlo, socavarlo. 

La imagen que tenemos no es la nuestra.
Llevamos una imagen prestada.
Pero su negativo puede ser la entrada
hacia la imagen que sí nos corresponde:
el positivo de un pensar
que corrige al vacío. 

In 2009, I was living in Bogotá (Colombia) several years after having migrated from Barranquilla (birthplace). I was faced with a deep feeling of loneliness and in the midst of a crisis of nostalgia for the lost territory, existential questions arose like: What is life about? Are we life itself? While all these questions were reproduced in my head, I decided to project images of Barranquilla’s seafront on my home walls and take photos of it. This photograph was born from there, from the need to get answers. Answers never came but the questions remained afloat in me. 

Ten years later, I migrated to Annecy (France). There, I tried to deconstruct the images with which I had identified myself until then. Being nobody in the middle of a completely unknown territory (for the second time) confronted me with the same feeling of loneliness and the same questions as if I was going back in time. I saw myself naked, like all the trees that accompanied me. I decided to dance with them, and I recorded myself free, breathing present in the midst of an inexhaustible dance that I felt would never end. 

This period allowed me to savor the mystery of the trees with their countless seasonal colors. It allowed me to live the seasons, my seasons, and those of others. Being a foreigner gave me the strength to understand that, to evolve, it is important to forget about yourself and to move away from your skin in order to be able to advance towards those multiple images that we are and that we will be. Life has always led me to be a migrant. Maybe to migrate from the idea that I have built of myself and go to meet those other images that I am. And to be present for the Life that wanted to be a life therein. From this understanding comes the text, the third piece of this work.

Work made of: 1 photography, 1 video and 1 text 
Location: Colombia: Bogota / France: Annecy