Gabriela
Téllez

The Refractories, work in progress

Ismael Vargas Guillen died in 1992 in Sweden. The announcement of the death of my paternal uncle is one of my strongest childhood memories, and it was years later that I would understand that it was not for emotional reasons, but rather symbolic ones. We are both, these refractory characters of the family, those who have not followed the straight line of a correct life within a Catholic and modest society of Central America.

Through archives, images of spaces and elements representative of Costa Rica and Sweden, I produce a photographic narrative that seeks to link the past and the present in order to recreate a "mirror of life" between the journey of my Uncle Ismael and mine. This is to question the “sense of belonging” and notions of identity construction mainly linked to family dynamics and the experience of emigration.