“It Always Begins with an Archive”
“It Always Begins with an Archive”
The ephemeral. It was the ephemeral that relieved that toxic everyday. A street carnival, those low budget nomadic pieces leaving trash in their wake; or, a sudden purr of an urban cat. She continued her wander. The city lay submerged in its obscure torpor, but there were a considerable amount of observers to glimpse the intrigued face of the migrant as she caressed the burghal bricks full of dirt and stories. Kids with masks chanting the unknown sparkled the streets, and the sun rays burned the buildings walls. The sun painted the town and this particular palette was unfamiliar. Her sight was blurred but she continued her journey. She began collecting them, all the most precious images ever seen: a woman knitting a chair on the sidewalk with dark, freckled skin and eyes of taciturn blue. Her hands were pale as if she had sunk them in white paint. Her moves as she knitted were so stealthy that she seemed an invisible creature. The rope she uses is thick and gritty and as she dances with it, and intertwines her arms into it some almost invisible abrasions are born. She augments her pace and she notices she is finishing and her forehead sparkles in the sun and the sun sparkles in the buildings glass. She caresses her forehead and takes a deep breath. She holds with two hands the rope, and makes a knot and smiles.
She carefully takes the wooden anatomy and places it next to other, identical chairs, all next to each other on the side walk. The artisanal archive is facing the street. Everyone passing by ignores it. Everyone but me. From her neck hangs a Santeria necklace and she grabs it with one hand and kisses it. Marveled at her strange nature, I realize my forehead is sweating and sparkles under that same sun. I clean it and take a wooden structure. I recognize that rope and start the next chair. And there in the street, next to my archive of wood and rope, the ones ignoring my existence, the kids with masks, the bricks and the stories, under a combination of contradictory realities, we all began to blossom.
Evangelina Guerra Luján. |||| Edited by Athan Geolas.
* *Text Originally published on the article “It Always Begins with an Archive” on Edge Condition Magazine “Presenting Architecture” Issue.
