"En el país de la memoria" (In the country of memory)
a duo exhibition by
Liz Hernández and Argelia Rebollo
Opening Reception
Saturday, October 28, 2023
6-8pm public opening
Showing through December 2, 2023
TRANSLATIONS
January 22, 1954
Sometimes, I feel the need to run away, although I'm not in captivity. It sounds ridiculous, I know that, but the feeling persists. Some days feel more challenging than others. I wish I could go for a coffee at La Pagoda, walk through the Alameda park, gossip with someone, and learn how to dance danzón.
Today, I woke up feeling like I want to immerse myself in my memories and all those things that I will probably never be able to do. I can't resist the temptation to rescue some of my experiences that feel more and more distant. To drink coffee and milk in Tupinamba, or secretly go to the cantina La Opera.
Eat a pork torta or a tamal and atole, or go to my grandmother's restaurant and eat some huahuzontles. I want to listen to songs by Agustín Lara and dance to the rhythm of Toña La Negra. Watch a movie at the Teresa cinema. Or drink a few tequilas in secret with my friends. The sound of the tram, the melancholic song of the barrel organ, the bustle of people, the merolicos, the whistle of the yam seller, and the sound of the mobile knife sharpener. Why does it seem that in the past, we have all the time in the world? Were things truly better, or was it merely a lie of memory and nostalgia? That is partly correct. I start thinking about having children, and confusion invades me. I can barely guide myself in a place so foreign to me. How could I guide an innocent being? And what language would I teach them first? What is it like to go to school here? What name would I give them? Mine can barely be pronounced, and those who are not brave enough to pronounce it baptize with a more comfortable name for their mouths. And that person who has the other name, is it still me? Am I two people now? Or a person with two souls? I often tell Andrew I wish he could get to know me in my native language. I'm different; I am someone else, I tell him. And what if he doesn't love her? I wonder if he loves me or both of them. Can you be two people at the same time? What am I, or rather, who am I now?
-Argelia
August 5th,1956
I'm back in the country of memory.
Refuge of loneliness, a place where I don't exist.
A nation built on fictional foundations and monuments to lies.
It is very similar to the country where I come from and where there is no return date.
A territory where only one person lives.
Ironically, I am not alone. Many of us suffer the penance of having one foot in the past country and the other in the present country.
But it is more difficult to accept that the glorified place never existed.
Tomorrow, all this won't matter anymore. Time passes, and life goes on.
But that doesn't mean that from time to time, I won’t allow myself to drown in the sea of my memories.
-Argelia
September 22nd, 1956
If I were there in my homeland, I would not be working in this office.
I would live my dream of traveling around the country and being an artist.
The mountains of Oaxaca, the ocean of Yucatán, and the churches of Puebla.
A studio full of light and plants in exchange for this typewriter.
But I know that all this is a lie.
It's something I tell myself to be able to withstand the passage of time.
If I were there in my homeland, I would also work in an office.
The same or worse than mine.
-Argelia
April 8, 1958
I feel nervous, anxious, worried about what's going on there far away, where I'm not, where time continues to pass and passes without me. Has that place already forgotten me? I wonder if my ghost resides in the places I have lived. Time goes on, and the place and its people get older. And I'm so far away here, and time goes by here, and I get old with one foot inside and the other outside. The past on one side and the present on the other. And where does that leave the future? This dance between temporalities robs the future of the opportunity to be. To be something new in a place that asks me to be someone new, different, yes, but still me. I have never liked dramatic and tearful literature. Enough is enough. It's time to see the past as a tool and not a condemnation. The past can make us feel at peace for a little while. You must be suspicious of memory and its stories and avoid falling into the trap of remembering.
-Argelia