Maresia
Portuguese noun given to the smell of the sea
el camino no es el camino
from the poem ‘Amereida vol.I’ (Chile, 1967)
This is a personal photobook, the outcome of solitary walks by the seaside in December 2013, in Esposende, Portugal.
There, I read ‘Amereida’, written as a collective poem, the ‘Aeneid’ of America. Regarding the identity of the (south)American people, questioning and turning the world around, looking beyond, it provoked in me a need for movement, a call to action, an impulse to assume the never-ending journey, the ‘travesía’ (crossing). Taking long lonely walks on the beach, I had my camera and intuitively made these photographs.
About a year later, 500km away, in Madrid, with no sea, these images were transformed in a book. This emerged as the ideal format to transmit the sensations felt during this experience. Its physical nature implicates the reader as an actor in his own right. Navigating through the pages of (this) book comprises a walk in itself, backwards and forwards, up and down. A derive in search of a harbour whose location is unknown (and possibly inexistent).
A book is a place on its own, once ‘released’ it can have numberless readings, linear or not, uncontrollable by its author. The paths taken by its readers are infinite. My images are a mere suggestion, my interpretation on a poem, a record of my very own ‘Amereida’ in search for my personal identity.
Laser printing
Saddle stitch binding with thread
140 × 175mm
48 pages
2013–2015
