A body, a ruin, a void, a mirror is an investigation of spiritual identity through the making of a spiritual text. The piece is a leather bound mixed media book that analyzes the concepts of time, body, memory, life, death, and acceptance through papermaking, analogue photography, analogue printing processes, charcoal printing, and bookmaking. This piece merges an intersectional indigenous identity that was adopted by my family as a way to cope with migrant diaspora– viewing the Earth, tonantzin (our mother), as a mirror of oneself– and the urgency to create a record of existence through engagement with photographic theory such as Eduardo Cadava’s image in ruin, Roland Barthes’ testimony on time, and Susan Sontag’s inventory of mortality. The variability and repetitive imagery within the piece questions generational memory and trauma, truth, traces, and decay. The images and text used in the piece have been gathered and modified over the past four years of wandering through a boundless landscape in an attempt to place the mind and body in transit– through the void. This book becomes an extension of the self– transcending limitations of the human vessel and granting permission to release.
This book was developed over the course of three years after struggling to cope with my father’s diagnosis– a stubborn, unmoving man whose presence felt everlasting began to succumb to vulnerability and weakness. I struggled with conflicting emotions – how do i honor my pain and trauma whilst simultaneously honoring my father? How can I cope with change and an unknown future when all I've known is to prepare and control? How do i stop this cycle so my father and i can be freed from this purgatory of missed connections and unspoken words?
My father– the cynic, the atheist, the bible collector, the critic, the impulsive, the reckless, the strong… but most importantly… the misunderstood.
To step into a place without time– to find you in my memory where you drew funny pictures, sunsets in color pastels, architectural drawings in charcoal, listened to rock classics on the radio, and where you’d tell me about your childhood– is where we can find one another.
Padre lindo, te quiero mucho. Siempre estaré agradecido por tu confianza… espero que sepas que compartimos este logro.
see: if this is the end,; the veil; to you, someday; i felt your shape for the zines created leading up to this final book
leather bound book, stone buttons, handmade kozo paper, liquid emulsion print, charcoal screenprint, van dyke brown print on handmade abaca / cotton blend paper with charcoal inlusions
opening
a rapid decay
of a body solid as stone
accepting defeat
Instilled a fear
a search for distraction
To only meet eyes with the void
A reflection of everything that is, was, and ever will be
This landscape
Does not resemble where your soul resides
It was left behind
To only exist in a realm I can never access
Do you wish to permit?
Would you ever know how?
I hope to know you
And through you, me
To begin again,
To understand,
To hurt and to heal
and find
an opening
vessel
This abyss became my home
A container
A vessel
A framework contains
A life to fulfill
A landscape of thought
A place without time
a threshold,
An open window
A door left ajar
A roof caved in
The passage
Of a deteriorating vesselBound by the curse of memory
A connecting wire
That flows with a river of crimson
A displacement of the mind
holding onto a place that never existed
The earth– a body
The sky- a mirror
The water– a passage
To be consumed,
Within all that is
Forever
Until the lights go out
This void echoes
The draw of an exhausted breath
an eternal spiral
Inhala inhale
Suspira exhale
Descanza rest
Te encuentrare aquí, en el silencio I will find you here, in the silence
Entre las cicatrices de mi cuerpo y las ruinas de mi alma between the scars of my body and the ruins of my soul
Hay intersectiones there are intersections
De tu vida, y la mía
Te esperare aqui, chivo I will wait for you here, billy goat
Hasta el dia que te dejes ir until the day you let yourself go
Until then,
I’ll leave a window open
memory
a latent image
everchanging
has emulsified a message into my bones
I love you as much as i know how
I hate you as much as I try to unlearn
layered silhouettes plague the psyche
Impressions of the past
Form as scars on the surface
I try not to let it haunt me
To teach you
There is always something ahead
A letter never written
An image never taken
A drawing never saved
A longing for what never was
I am the man
And you, the child
We take shape to the molding of time
Maybe tomorrow will be different
This mind is plastic
How can i rely
On something so frail
But it is here, where the image stays clear
Even when my eyes deceive
You are my rock
Stubborn, unmoving
Una sombra de un hombre a shadow of a man
Alguien que nunca conoceré someone that i will never meet
Así soy yo? is that how i am?
Será? how i will be?
Espero que pase el tiempo I hope that the time will pass
Para volver hablar contigo to talk with you again
Perdoname por hacerte enojar forgive me for making you mad
{buenas noches} [goodnight]
{adios} [bye]
Quiero que deseas que despierte I want you to wish for me to wake up
Para que lo intente de nuevo so i can try again
Enseñarte to teach you
Que lo merecemos that we deserve it
Una vida sin el empañe de dolor a life without the fog of pain
Siempre estare aquí por ti I will always be here for you
Aún si faltarás la capacidad even if you lack the ability
De abrirte por completo to open yourself up completely
Lo entiendo i understand
The veil that separates us is nothing but a mirror
veil
Seek the portal
A bridge between worlds
To lay within
Allow it to envelop the frame
and move towards acceptance
Of all we cannot understand
closing
If this is the end, when did it start?
Perhaps there is no boundary betweenOnly the journey that is
A breath, a thought, a voyage, a presence
Yours will continue in my memory
And mine in yours
We are all held by the same body
Until we are returned to her
A merging...
To begin again