I agreed with S. to make a present for her granddaughter. She brought a great collection of photographs that narrated her marriage, having her son, and then her son having her baby girl. I tried to make simple drawings out of them in a sequence, but she didn’t like it. I tried again with a collage but was also unsuccessful. There was no chance to try again, I had to take my flight to get home. The gift was not given. Later I learned that was the last time she spoke to our common acquaintance, she was very angry.

I didn’t think about this episode until one year after, when I visited her city and someone told me they hadn’t seen her around, they even wondered if she was dead. I looked at the failed drawings I did for this stranger. The gift was suspended, in a limbo. I took the drawings and embroidered them, a silhouette of people against a white background, it felt like an empty mold, somehow a memory unable to become but with infinite potential. For sure many people have experienced those same moments while growing up. I decided to look for possible owners, people that could give to this orphan outlines an exact name and a place.

I ended up with a family album made of photos of people that don’t know each other but that share similar memories.

2018 Copenhagen, Prague , Mexico