False Memory. In this ongoing series, I explore areas in Bolivia, Chile, and Mexico where mining and other industries have extracted human and natural resources for centuries. The writings of Eduardo Galeano inspire the work. I interpret the author’s poignant descriptions of a Latin American landscape stripped of its natural resources - scenes of mountains carved into hollow shells and vast forests cut into empty plains.
The project is shot using a wide variety of analog and digital formats and a mixture of color and black-and-white images, giving each format a distinct point of view, like a character in a novel. Support from institutional and private archives visited in each location is also important to the structure of this project.
Wear your headphones and listen to a soundscape produced exclusively for this project by Espacio No Domesticable with poetry in Spanish by René Zinho.
Several photo contact sheets of landscapes, cars, and structures scattered across a table.
Salt flats with a small red truck in the distance, mountains in the background, and overcast sky.
A wide view of a barren, rocky desert landscape under a cloudy sky with scattered clouds.
Interior of an old, abandoned wooden structure with sunlight filtering through gaps in the ceiling, casting shadows on the dusty ground. There is a graffiti sign on a metal object that reads 'ESCOPETA'.
A narrow irrigation canal runs through a dry, barren landscape with mountains in the background under a cloudy sky.
Quote describing the physical features of strangers with covered bodies, white skin, yellow hair, long yellow beards, and curly hair with fine strands. Source is from a book by Miguel Leon-Portilla about Aztec conquest of Mexico.
Nighttime cityscape featuring illuminated buildings and streets with a mountainous background.
A historical map of a town and surrounding mountains, featuring hand-drawn illustrations with labels, a coat of arms, and a compass rose.
Open ancient handwritten manuscript in Spanish with two pages of text, aged paper, and decorative capital letters.
Black and white photograph of a mountainous landscape with a dirt road in the foreground, rolling hills, and a sky with a few clouds.
A large, reddish-brown mountain with steep slopes under a cloudy sky.
Old photograph deteriorated by exposure to the elements and the passage of time. The image shows a miner inside a mine next to a cart filled with minerals, highlighting hard work, the industrial past, and the memory of an era.
Underground tunnel of mine with rocky walls and metal supports, dimly lit and ending in darkness.
A dirt road leading into a dark cave entrance surrounded by green trees and rocks under a blue sky.
One of several mountains of mining scoria left by Compañía El Boleo S.A., in a poor neighborhood of the Mexican town of Santa Rosalía, on the coast of the Baja California peninsula.
In 1868 copper deposits were discovered in the Santa Rosalía region, and in 1885 the mining company was established with a 50-year concession granted by President Porfirio Díaz.
The company ended operations in 1954, leaving behind reverberatory furnaces and metallurgical converters, old locomotives, mining machinery, and equipment, as well as various toxic industrial wastes, which were scattered throughout the city in the open air.
A hill of mining waste with sparse vegetation and scattered debris in the foreground, under a clear sky with sunlight providing warm illumination.
A worn, abandoned shoe on gravel with a rusted, discarded ball in front of it.
Waiting for Eduardo Galeano, Montevideo, Uruguay.