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Historia Familiar
4'01/ 2007
Historia familiar (translated both as “family history” and “familiar - commonly known - history”) revisits a conversation with my father, who is at the time remembering the construction and fall of the Unidad Popular in Chile. Pieces of his words are superimposed over a rural landscape, which could be situated anywhere. Both image and narration have been decontextualized in order to give space to the viewer to appropriate the story, almost becoming fictitious. Free of a specific time and place, historia familiar focuses on the collective force and optimism of the social movement; “...everybody participated in something.” The abstract quality of the landscapes in movement suggests the idea of remembering history, an attempt to grasp a memory; they also respond to the ambiguity of the narration and the utopian and ephemeral character of the historical moment. This work builds up slowly a sense of hope, which is abruptly disrupted leaving an atmosphere of loss and nostalgia.
