This all started with the quarantine around early March 2020. I felt the urge to escape reality and take advantage of the suspended time that we all had available, trying to learn something from it. Home and its territory has always been a mysterious combination of known and unknown. The way I find myself most comfortable exploring it, is by taking into account both aspects. Looking far, looking close. A little at a time. But of course you always have to start from something, from somewhere. And it’s nice to see that gathering even just little pieces, actually has the effect of awakening something overwhelming.
Here is what I originally wrote when beginning this diary: “In the months leading up to the pandemic, I moved around a lot for work, albeit with some precaution — the current projects required it and, honestly, I didn’t feel like giving up, unaware in part of my irresponsibility, of the potential danger. I continued to work trying what I think many felt at the beginning of this crisis: concern, some kind of blind belief that “no, it can’t be” and a desire to hold on to something. Long weeks later, I’m sitting in the studio where I spend most of my day. I look out the window towards the mountains a few kilometers away, and I think of the enormous fortune of living in this house, in this area. Once a day, at dusk, I walk silently in the fields that separate me from those mountains, I photograph what is available, and associate it with older images, trying to look at everything with a new gaze — this is my exercise.”
*The title is a humble tribute to Werner Herzog’s words in an interview, addressing the dangers of lacking a relevant way of expressing ourselves through images and thoughts.
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