Transitory. Fleeting. Of short duration. The taste of an orange. The warble of a bird. The morning breeze on the beach. These are some of the things that come to mind when we hear the word “ephemeral”. Regardless, a linguistic exploration would lead us to a new meaning for this word. The fourth edition of Adam Littleton’s dictionary of Latin, published in 1703, includes the word ephemĕrus. One of the accepted meanings is as a medical term, one that describes a fever that would last for just one day. As such, the ephemeral does not only entail a matter of time but also describes, at least for a moment, a bodily response. How we wish that this fever that COVID has brought with it – along with all its consequences – would last for a single day!

Cecilia Salcedo is another inhabitant of this planet that remained at home due to the pandemic that transformed us all in 2020. Accustomed to going outside to gaze and appreciate nature through her photographic lens, suddenly her wanderings found themselves interrupted. Unable to go out and immerse herself in the vegetation, she looked inwardly, to that which her immediate surroundings presented to her. The flora that had so nourished her work, found a new way of manifesting itself. Cecilia captures images through developing and printing on paper, but on this occasion, the images would leave their impression on cloth. No longer was this about emulsions of silver or gelatins, as now she turned to the archaic chemistry of textile dyeing, where minerals like alum and iron sulfate entered into play, along with humidity and temperature, to create images by the fixing and toning of color upon the fabric.

This is how Cecilia ventured into the technique known as Ecoprint, a method developed by India Flint, to whom this stamping technique is attributed after having printed Eucalyptus leaves on cloth in her native Australia. Ecoprint consists of taking advantage of the forms, colors, and natural composition of the leaves so that, in combination with mordents, liquid water, and vapor, these would leave their impression upon the fabric. In addition to leaves, Cecilia experimented with the use of fruits cut in very fine slices, as well as flowers, aromatic herbs, and even cochineal powder. Her experience in the field of photography led her to create images based on different botanical compositions on the pieces of cloth. On seeing the ensemble of fabrics that had been accumulating, Cecilia noticed that a color was missing, blue, for which she turned to the technique of cyanotype. It is exciting to remember that cyanotype is a photographic technique introduced mid 19^th century and perfected by Anna Atkins, a British botanist who employed the method to reliably document plants. Atkins is also considered the first woman photographer.

The installation that we exhibit in this hall seeks to recreate the forest that Cecilia formed in her home during the first stage of the pandemic. The breeze enters via the windows to make the leaves contained on the cloth dance. The lights and the shadows change throughout the day and according to the passing of the months. The colors in the fabrics will diminish in their intensity: like in the woods, the landscape will slowly transform. Our experience in traveling this space will be different each time, as even though places are static, what occurs in them never is. Cecilia considers that her experimentation in fabric has been a transitory phase: ephemeral. In a way, photography is as well, the images that are captured by the lens occur in just an instant: it is their memory that remains. These ideas allow us to question the notion of the absolute, as, despite the inevitable culmination of the ephemeral, the end is not abrupt. All fleeting stages, even this pandemic, afford us the opportunity to renew our perspective of the world that surrounds us and, above all else, the role that we play in it. This fever that we suffer from may not feel so ephemeral, but just as it has made us delirious, it also offers to plant new models of thinking and feeling… of being.

Hector M. Meneses Lozano

March 2022

Back to...