Umbra

The work becomes a means to recall part of the history of our country, when the Argentine military dictatorship caused the disappearance and death of more than 30,000 people. Remembering is a vital human activity, which defines our links with the past, with our history, and the ways in which we remember define us with the present. This work connects us with the action of remembering, enabling the necessary dialogues between the past-present. When we access memories (in any of its forms), there are two processes involved: memory itself (living memory) and the action of remembering that places the past in the present so that we can observe and question it.

The film that is projected on the first projector is a part of “La Fiesta de Todos”. Argentine documentary/comedy film from 1979 directed by Sergio Renán, about the 1978 Soccer World Cup. It was written by Renán, Hugo Sofovich and Mario Sabato, the latter under the pseudonym «Adrián Quiroga». The film’s comedy sketches are starred by a large group of well-known Argentine actors and cultural figures. It was released on May 24 of that year. The film is a mostly documentary reconstruction of the Argentine victory in the World Cup held in that country, interspersed with different fictitious episodes that take place during the same period.
The film has been criticized as an attempt to show a united people enjoying a «party for all» at a time when the country was governed by the last criminal civil-military dictatorship (1976-1983), which had imposed a regime of state terrorism at the national level. Since its premiere, La fiesta de todos is considered by many film critics as a propaganda film and support for the military regime in force at the time, since it addresses the issue of the preparation and development of the 1978 World Cup with an optimistic and festive, apologizing for an event that the dictatorship had developed to function as a smokescreen to hide the genocide carried out by the State.

The film that is projected on the second projector corresponds to a film (filmed by me) that brings together some of the portraits of the filmmakers/photographers who disappeared during the dictatorship. (That information was accessed through the ESMA public archive).

Both films are projected continuously on the same box on the wall, with the exception that the film corresponding to «La Fiesta de todos» is mechanically intervened with an indelible marker as it progresses in its projection. The pencil strokes cover the emulsion of the film, resulting in its own projection being altered, deteriorated until it becomes an image with very little information. As this happens, the film corresponding to the portraits of the disappeared begins to be seen more clearly, as a result of an overlap with the other film, each time weaker.

The work does not investigate what happened during the dictatorship, we already know the painful response. The work reflects on ourselves at that time: What did we see? What did we want to see? What did they show us?

The work works in the reverse version of our history, building a device that hides that political propaganda, disarming that model that took care of itself to hide the genocide that was taking place in our country.