Quote from the text by Melisa Boratyn - Curator


"In her father's house there was a calendar hanging with the date May 5th. The day that her mother died was immortalized in an unimportant object. The years passed, however that calendar remained detained in time. It wasn´t until she started this project that Ariela Naftal understood that the Things aren´t just things when they keep our history within.

 

Photography is a tool that allows us to capture the world around us. In an irrefutable way, it transfers what we see to the support, but we mustn´t ignore the fact that an observing artist is behind the camera, someone who analyzes and contributes with his subjectivity. Ariela uses this technique as an instrument to narrate daily stories.

 

It would be accurate to say she acts as a portraitist. Silently and patiently, she began to decipher the value in the seemingly insignificant. Encounters led her to create bonds with people and objects. She needed to feel a connection. As people approached their "treasures" and established a conversation, they unveiled the mystery. Then she took them out of context, distancing them from the environment to capture them as they had reached her hands, old, worn and marked -indications that they had been enjoyed-. The final result is transferring those stories to paper in a series of photographs which respect the real size of those objects.

 

Each Thing has a history. The sewing machine that Raquel had bought with the money she gained by selling her wedding dress, an accordion - a symbol of the passion of a family for music – a girl´s precious toy, an old and unglamorous wallet but inherited with lots of love. The chair where Ana, since she got sick, watched the novels. A fake passport that would save a Danzig citizen from death during the Second World War, allowing him to start a new life in a far away country. The spoon that despite being equal to any other spoon becomes unique because it belonged to a loved one. No matter how many there are in the world, that one is irreplaceable.

 

Life is fragile and limited. Time passes and generations are renewed bringing novelty with them. However, we hide the need to find something tangible that allows us to preserve the past and the present that define us. The walls of this exhibition are a reflection of that. They are full of the most varied objects that become precious not because of their material value but for what they symbolize that reinforce the memory of someone who is no longer there, a memory of childhood, an eternal love, a trip or a passion.

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For years, Ariela has tried to understand why we give so much emotional credit to the material.

 

The value of the object is the one given by each person. Things end up being the visible side of the spirit."