I originally wanted to make a book because of the physical, material quality of an object and its grounding role on storytelling. However, with the pandemic, this will prove to be very difficult because objects and people are having to be experienced by different, non-physical ways. This is why I think that for my final project, I would like to compile the little stories I have been sharing on this blog, along with others from the first semester in a different, more specifically curated space. This way, the narrative can be designed and experienced with this «digital bridge» in mind.

Speaking with Jon, we discussed the idea of also adding some form of narration or audio file to accompany the visual content. I am interested in this, so the experience feels more personal and material, through the performative.

I borrowed these rocks from the River Dee the day the lockdown started. I will give them back when everything goes back to being a little less terrifying, which I hope is soon.

I was feeling homesick, so I revisited a text I wrote about mysterious things that have happened in the street where I grew up in Mexico City. The street is named after Edgar Allan Poe, so I included references to his tales, which curiously enough, mirror some of the events that happened. I wrote this text to accompany photographs I took of my neighbors in their homes for an editorial I designed. It now seems like a map of experiences and memory of my childhood street. These are some of the photographs and part of the translated text:

The crimes in Edgar Allan Poe St.

“My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. […] I will not attempt to expound them. […] Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place-some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.” –’The Black Cat’, Edgar Allan Poe.

Lost pizzas, confused tourists and bewildered postal workers go here. On 8 Edgar Allan Poe St., Polanco, the lucky will find a hotel. The rest will find themselves on 6 Edgar Allan Poe, Anzures. 

–It’s not here– we, the neighbors, say to the travelers as routine sighs escape us, but not to the chicken. 

The chicken manifested itself in front of my house one day. In the times of  President Plutarco Elías Calles, the houses in Anzures, where he lived, had fountains at the front and chicken coops at the back. Mine now has a patio, but eighty five years ago, it also had chickens, and fifteen years ago one returned. No one knew where it came from, or how easily it would follow the tortilla trail my father left on the floor from across the street to our garage. It seemed to know the way. Gallina was a fleeting pet and a long-lived meal. It was not until three months later that my father made it soup.

*

Mrs. Rosa, whose house shares a wall with mine, has a fine collection of signed paintings by Jorge Riosse. There is one hanging in almost every room. Rosita, as the neighbors call her, has hosted several young students in the almost ninety years she has lived there, but the only tenant that painted, sang, and killed prostitutes was Jorge. He strangled a total of thirteen women in hotels close to La Merced and used thirteen different lipsticks to write messages on the scenes. In an attempt to burn all evidence, the attic room Rosita rented to him burned down, along with his poems, wig and body.

*

The chilaquiles thief arrived at number 13 through the roof while Mrs. Gloria slept. She was tired and he was hungry, which worked out well for both because she did not hear a thing, and he made no sound. It was until later that day that she found an empty pot in the kitchen and the neighbors talking outside about the boy who had jumped across their roofs in the early morning. 

–Help me down, it’s too high!– the boy had told the lawyer from number 9 after getting stuck. Mrs. Gloria went to the roof to retrace his steps.

<<He climbed the aguacate tree>>, she concluded. She then picked up the plate and fork the chilaquiles thief left behind after eating breakfast.

*

Victor arrives at five thirty in the morning from Monday to Friday to sweep the street he later intricately fills with parked cars. After thirty years of working on Edgar Allan Poe, he is experienced. Even though he does not live here, the front patio on number 1 has a permanent grassless patch where his chair sits everyday. He is, too, a neighbor. From his corner he hears and sees everything: the stories about wandering chickens, serial killers, breakfast thieves and about what cops pay to wash the police car. They pay him nothing. He has been detained fifteen times and the carwash has become complimentary. 

Occasionally, we at number 6 think of the luck we had, good and bad, to not live two blocks to the right. If all street names are as ominous as mine, Edgar Allan Poe sounds significantly better than Dante and its weather more forgiving.

I started to feel somewhat trapped in my apartment in Aberdeen, so I drew myself in rooms I miss, like my bedroom in Mexico City.

I was/am having a hard time staying creatively active and happy, so I started making portraits of people on instagram. I made them with the story brushes and ended up drawing 55, Kyriakos included. It was a little, but helpful way to stay connected.

I compiled the 55 photos in an instagram story you can find here.

I wrote a couple of sentences in Spanish about how I wish I could take my tomatillos and plants with me on a suitcase wherever I go.

One.

A suitcase to carry my tomatillo garden.

A suitcase filled with tomatillos.

A suitcase to carry my tomatillo garden.

A suitcase where a thousand tomatillos fit, just in case.

A suitcase to pack my plants.