CATASTRO
2008
The work is made up of images taken during the fire in the artist’s house in 2004 and the recording of the fire department’s call. The work project consists of two parts: a photographic series and a video installation. In the first one, the images are a series of 7 photomontages made from the registration of the remains of the fire for the land registry of the incident, on images of the inner support of an old family photo album. The series is a large-scale print that was an intervention on the walls of the Galería Bech [Santiago, Chile] in 2008. The second part includes an image of a photo album that flips its pages while playing the recorded radio communication from the web log of the Vitacura Fire Department.
Saiz reviewed his childhood memories in an exercise of evocation; limited by the absence of other images to contrast them with. This exercise was inhabitated by the insistence and reiteration of the need to keep (or recover) the memory. The work Catastro utilizes a series of photographs documenting the aftermath of a fire in 2004 as its primary source material. Once again, the photos were taken by outsiders. In this piece, the artist exhibits her own ‘family album’ of memories of a tragedy, using a tic of unveiling-hiding intimacy.
Despite Saiz’s intentions, the raw materials used are not merely an excuse for the work’s development. The work is born and explained through the symbolic, emotional, and subjective contents that these elements carry. These elements move between the memory archive, revisitation, and biography.
Catastro: Color video [3’,40″ in loop], HD digitized from Hi 8.
Trough Catastro, Saiz has shifted his focus from the universe of childhood towards a more recent experience. However, despite the title’s attempt to distance and remain objective by cataloging biographical memories, the work ultimately reveals these images that would have otherwise remained hidden forever. This unveiling of exorcised images through art transfers photographs taken for a different purpose and without authorial identification.
Soledad Novoa Donoso