Lorena Guillén Vaschetti

Historia, Memoria y Silencios (Silencios) Unopened IX

2009

Lorena Guillén Vaschetti was born in Rosario, Argentina, in 1974 and currently lives and works in Buenos Aires. In 2000, Lorena received a degree in architecture and anthropology from the University of Buenos Aires. Her work has been widely exhibited and published in the United States, South America and Europe. Her first book, Historia, Memoria, y Silencios, Schilt 2011 was distinguished by PhotoEspana, 2012 and PDN as one of the Best Books of the Year. Her work is in the permanent museum collections of Danish Museum of Photographic Art in Denmark, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes of Rio de Janeiro and the Southeast Museum of Photography in Florida. Vaschetti approaches photography as an anthropologist and the simplicity of her work allows the viewer to bring in their own stories, conclusions and realities to the images. Using the idea of memory as a foundation for her work, Vaschetti's photographic series dissects how we are in the present as a result of what we remember from the past. In her Historia, Memoria, y Silencio series the artist captures elements and artifacts recovered from a box of thrown out family photographs. In 2009, Vaschetti’s mother threw away all of the family slides to protect her daughter from their family history. Vaschetti was able to recover only one box out of the many that her mother discarded. She re-photographed the contents from her perspective, choosing to leave the slides that were wrapped in packages unopened. Bound in elastic bands, and concealed in film cannisters, these artifacts conceal a history of family secrets that the artist will never learn of.