Reflejo Líquido
Argentina/Germany
Like a chorus of voices, like something two people summon when they meet, the distortion of the mirror, the boundaries between people slip away.
I met Esma in the square one block from my house. She and her friend Hanin were walking together and sitting on a bench having an ice cream when I approached to talk to them.
In that first meeting we talked for about an hour, it was a relaxed and somewhat deep conversation, I think we both felt comfortable and that allowed our second meeting to take place at my house. There was something in our meetings that felt like a confession and I was interested in going deeper into that. Esma was sitting on my couch and wanted to confess to the camera something she can't tell almost anyone. At that moment I understood that the distances I thought separated us were really just reflections. Kneeling on the carpet in front of a mirror, like an intimate and sacred gift, Esma took off her hijab and showed me/us her hair. The mirror became, from that moment on, our point of encounter and distance. I understood that this exercise with her required me to give more of myself, to put my body in order to enter into deeper contact with the bonds that unite us. It was from the performative exercise in the private and the public that the frontiers between us began to slip away and with them the projections became distorted.
This collaboration was for me like a journey to who I was at some point and a reminder to question my own and other people's conceptions that crystallise. I think that for her I was like a journey to possible realities. A strange and somewhat anonymous accomplice, but nevertheless very close.