It is raining upon the desert and a good time to
dive into some of my boxes still piled up in the garage. Inescapably, these are
cardboard boxes where my printed photographs and negatives are kept.
And memories.
So, I found a number of photos from Argentina that I
had not published.
A. Downtown
Buenos Aires
My travels have mostly
been for professional purposes, either to teach or to work with Ministries of
Health regarding emerging or urgent health care issues. On this trip the focus
was on medical errors and patient safety in Argentina’s hospitals. With that in mind, when I was walking
downtown I saw this poster which I interpreted as the “code of silence” often discussed
regarding mishaps and errors during medical care. I thought it was amazingly courageous
of the healthcare system to actually have posters about that taboo topic. ó
It was only after
mentioning it to colleagues that I learned that it was the advertising for a
very popular TV show…! As they say “to a man with a hammer, everything looks
like a nail!”
B. Recoleta
Cemetery
I have written about my
visits to this amazing city of the dead where among many famous people, Evita
Perón has her mausoleum. (http://liveingray.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-walk-in-recoleta-cemetery-to-find.html ) In the stack of pictures I found the
resting place of an Armenian and I felt good that I had taken a picture of it.
Who was Kevork?
It is probably rare
that the gates of a mausoleum are left open when the inside is cleaned. I have
seen it only twice. Here I had pictures of what was inside the final resting
place of perhaps a couple, since there were two coffins one atop the
other. I have always felt a morbid
intrusion when taking such photos.
Finally a statue that I
visit every time I am at Recoleta. A few meters away is the boundary of the cemetery and the start of the living city. I like that continuum. The statue depicts an exhausted man being carried by
someone with a hooded coat. At every visit I tend to interpret it differently:
sometimes I see a mother tending to a sick son; other time it is the specter of
death that is carrying the body. I have resisted reading the plaque at the bottom
of the statue in order to let my state of mind and soul interpret what I see
without the prescribed intent of the sculptor.
I find art to be better
appreciated that way.
April 10, 2016
© Vahé A. Kazandjian,
2016
I too love to photograph doors. Maybe because it can evoke possibilities and also finalities. There are some doors I want to walk through and some I would not. I once spent the whole day photographing a cemetery in Paris. I am sure you know the one! So many doors....
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