Glances in the landscape: Photography and memory in the work of Guadalupe Gaona

Abstract

This article is framed within the discussion about the ways in which aesthetic artefacts build up memories of traumatic social episodes. I will focus on one of the many photographic memories of the sons and daughters of the victims of the last Argentinean dictatorship. The book Pozo de aire [Well of Air] by Guadalupe Gaona (2009) presents old images of her family album – among which we find the only photograph of the author and her father – mixed together with her own photography and poetry. This combination of images and words allows her to find her father within the landscape and facilitate an impossible reunion with him.