it was her who won the bet and so they packed for:
the ocean, not the camel
tortillas, not dunes
the jungle, not the oud
the feathered serpent
in his bag: orhan pamuk’s the new life, something by flann o’brian, a rollei 35, a notebook. later joined by el naranjo (carlos fuentes). bolaño? not heard of yet.
ruffled and mystified, he was back sooner than thought. relating a tale of love gone astray, grateful for the welcome home.
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why not share some of the photographs taken on that errance? serve tamales, beer and mezcal to friends and family? but: not a single passable picture in the maleta mexicana.
here is another try, late by 20 years, looking out into the atlantic from its oriental shores. a project that takes its title from a poem by roberto bolaño.
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el mar i
silver gelatin print, handtinted
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la serpiente y las plumas
silver gelatin print, toned
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el mar ii
cyanotypes on watercolour paper
from waxed paper negatives
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las dos orillas
acrylic transfer on watercolour paper
from a triple exposure on medium format colour negative film
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flores océanicas
cyanontype photograms of algae
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el mar iii
silver gelatin prints
from pinhole photographs on 35mm film
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el mar iv
large format camera obscura (8×10 inch)
digital photographs
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el tesoro
digital photographs
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los barcos de cesárea
toned silver gelatin print
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la nube sobre narbona
toned silver gelatin print
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.continued in the japanese trilogy: d’un monde flottant / of a floating world.
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suggested soundtrack
the aguirre album by popol vuh? ocean of storms by el búho (tulúm set)? wölf by stiller has? to the sea with yellow and stina nordenstam? debussy’s la mer? the toy dolls’ worse things happen at sea? thousands are sailing by the pogues? songs of the humpback whale (payne et al. 1970)?
the first lines of the text above in morse code:
and why not listen to the the big read of the rime of the ancient mariner (with iggy pop, marianne faithful …)? or to the podcast sea goings? .
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footnotes
the line sin cartografías / ni valientes capitanes is from roberto bolaño’s poem para rosa lentini (hermosos instantes sin memoria, 1978-1981) in the collection la universidad desconocida (2007).
the sea monster depicted in la serpiente y las plumas is a 130m long sculpture by huang yong ping, unleashed in 2012 close to saint-brevin-les-pins (france).
las dos orillas is a short story in carlos fuentes’ el naranjo (1994) and it may remind of (if not plagiarise) william turners’ three seascapes.
some further books on the bedside table while working on the project: shackleton’s argonauts (frank hurley, 1956), die entdeckung amerikas (urs bitterli, 1992), los detectivos salvajes (roberto bolaño, 1998), the boundless ocean (david abulafia, 2020), magellan (stefan zweig, 1938), bis ans ende der meere (lukas hartmann, 2008), the collection vive l’océan (erik orsenna and isabelle autissier, 2008), une longue nuit mexicaine (isabelle mayault, 2019) and, of course, l’intégrale des jurons du capitaine haddock (albert algoud, 2004).
photographs made over autumn and winter 2019/2020 in portugal and france.