Zarcillo is a project about the creation of an imaginary archive, to reflect on inheritance through symbolic reconstructions of memories in Abuela Mari’s birthplace Almayate, a town in the south of Spain, after most of the family migrated to the north of the country in the middle of the 20th century.
The images are based on oral family stories that the artist collected during several visits to the town, as well as collective suggestions of sites for exploration.
The impossibility of accessing the past is manifested in the tension of adult bodies reenacting memories of a previous generation, or activities that stopped being performed ages ago, and in the uncanniness of the combination of isolated fantastical objects.
The work reflects on the act of remembering and the ways of crafting a narrative for the self and aims to be a shelter of fantasy built by a child, but also a sensorial exploration of memory.
“Zarcillo” is an Andalusian word that refers to earrings, but also to the cuts that animals would have in their ears to be distinguished by their property, as well as the structures that plants create to hold themselves to other external supports and bodies.
Zarcillo in the Grad Photo Biennial 2024 “Home/World”, curated by Protyasha Panndey