THE PAST IS JUST A STORY WE TELL OURSELVES 18

THE PAST IS JUST A STORY WE TELL OURSELVES #18. "2/11 A child waves as she sits in a vehicle carrying residents evacuated from a public housing building at Cheung Hong Estate in Hong Kong. REUTERS/Tyrone Siuv"

Photography. Giclee print with diasec mounting. 150 x 100 cm. Ed of 6 + 2 AP.

Since the start of the pandemic that I’ve collected images from the REUTERS website and, after some time, all seemed the same: people in masks, people in hospitals, plastic containers... I decided to question the status of these images with their apparent repetition and similarities. I printed these pictures with an A4 inkjet printer on acetate paper inspired by the elements in many of them. The ink kept its fluidity when printed on acetate - the original image was not perceptible anymore. The next step was to press them to another acetate, and sometimes another, to create a metaphor for contagion. The prints were left unmoved for the equivalent time of the incubation period of the virus of 14 or more days. - some prints kept changing while others faded. A scan of the resulting dry prints was made - a metaphor for medical and scientific research procedures. The final move was to print the resulting digital files as large prints with plexiglass face mounting. These works subvert and question the photographic medium and suggest transience and hybridity. The title of the series implies that memories are what we decide to make of them. The title of each piece is the caption of the transformed source Reuters picture.