Lautaro and Marista
It’s said that in the event of a global nuclear fallout, Uruguay — owing to certain features I’m not aware of — together with Argentina and Australia would be one of the few areas of the world free of radiation. It’s rumoured that for this very reason a Canadian citizen bought the block of land in Garzón where the tapera stands in which I presented my work at ArtFest 2023.
Lautaro (San Carlos, 1946) has lived in Garzón for decades. A witness to the village’s gradual decline, he now watches in silence the gringo invasion of recent decades.
—There are a lot of people these days, how are you coping with it?
—The village has room for everyone…
Lautaro is a man of few words and, it seems, always apt ones.
Later, inviting Lautaro to visit the tapera where I was showing my installation, Celeste wove a bridge between two worlds that coexist in the same space barely touching. Two parallel realities superimposed, as in a temporal anomaly during a journey through time. Lautaro entered slowly, his gaze lost in the past. In the tapera he did not see my work, he saw Marista. He went back to a distant time, when that place was a home and not a ruin.
—A friend of mine lived here, many, many years ago, before she went to live in San Carlos. I haven’t set foot in here since then.
—And is she still in San Carlos?
—No, she was killed… it was her partner.
—What was her name?
—I don’t remember…
Lautaro stayed silent for a while, looking at time outside the window. The name would not come.
—Lautaro, let’s do this: carry on with your walk, and surely, as you walk, you’ll remember her name.
We leaned out of the window, each looking towards his own time and his own story. It was at that moment that Celeste took a photo of us.
And later Lautaro came back. I saw him approach slowly along the Paraje Izcua and call me with a shy gesture.
—Now I remember, her name was Marista.
Marco and Lautaro, Garzón, December 2023. Photo: Celeste Reyna