Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave)

© Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project © Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project © Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project View all images ↓
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A story of the historic center of La Guaira,the coast closest to the city of Caracas, and one of the oldest and most important ports in the country.T hinking and reflecting about memory, the present and the political uses of history and past

La Guaira is the coast closest to the city of Caracas (Venezuela), and one of the oldest and most important ports in the country, especially during the eighteenth century, as the center of trade operations, imports and exports of goods and fruits, such as cocoa, during those colonial years.

However, years have passed and this territory seems to be the backyard of Caracas. A kind of paradise or tourist oasis that sometimes seems to have no history, a place of fragmented stories, and at the same time, a kind of dormitory city because of its airport; a place of many names, which seem to be changed, like someone who reinvents an identity, and makes a kind of clean slate.

All this is even more palpable in the streets of the historic center of La Guaira, and its current architectural recovery and restoration. Whose works make us reflect and question about memory, the present, identity, the political uses of historical sites and of history itself, the interference of the State and politicking -which can produce rejection in some people, cover up discontent and fall into excesses-; the great lack of drinking water, the pain and traces of tragedies and river floods (the most serious and recent occurred in 1999), and on the other hand, the bluest skies, salsa music and the smiles of the thriving people who live in the lands of this old town, where all the streets reach the sea.

In this project I propose to tell a story of the historic center of La Guaira in its current state, through visual experimentation, starting from walks through its streets, looking for the generation of matrices and graphic material, through documents, papers, graffiti, and found objects, in its various buildings in ruins, a typography that works since the nineteenth century and conversations with its own inhabitants, which allowed me to somehow read this old town that I knew during my childhood

© Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project
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Photomontage of a typographic stamp of a rudder and a ship, a photo of houses and buildings in the principal street of the old town of La Guaira. In the background, a piece of paper found in the ruins of one of the buildings, concerning customs operations.Some of these buildings are abandoned and others function as carpentries, textile workshops, restaurants or as homes, where families often sel

© Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project
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Spearheads from La Guaira excavated by Alexi Rojas, an important person in the area, who also studied petroglyphs and painting as a profession. That I relate it to the typographic seal of this indigenous person, to mark as a chronological starting point. Therefore I accompany her with one of the excavations in the Baluarte de La Guaira. Commercial and military structure that functioned in colonial

© Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project
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Sculpture of Josefa Joaquina Sánchez, who would embroider the flag of one of the first independence movements in Venezuela, which took place in La Guaira, by Manuel Gual and José María España -Josefa was the latter's wife-. Image that dialogues with this flash in a portrait of my older sister

© Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project
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A drawing of a sun on a family, that I did during my kindergarten, that seems to me to shine in the water of the beach where my mother and my older brothers bathed, even before I was born

© Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project
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Photomontage of typographic stamps of fishes, a photo of the sea near the old town of La Guaira. In the background, a piece of paper found in the ruins of one of the buildings, concerning customs operations.To get and to bathe in this sea you must walk a long way and even climb some walls, because these are not waters where people used to bathe, as there are the remains of what was the old port

© Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project
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Nelson, fisherman Walks along Calle Bolívar del CascoHistoric, near Plaza Vargas with itsCojinúa and Medregal fishing.That made me think of the poems and writings in my mother's diaries

© Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project
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Photomontage of typographic stamps of the figure of a virgin and circles, and some cards, as part of the objects found in a ruined house near the Boulevar de los Pintores, photographed on a white background, as an inventory or contemporary archaeological record. These objects probably belonged to the family that lived there, which are mixed with the garbage thrown by the current inhabitants of ne

© Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project
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Ligia Purroy Gonzalez and Cristina Luyando Gonzalez, first cousins, live in this house. Both are 87 years old.Ligia started living in this house after she got married.her mother's house in Guamacho.Cristina tells me that she lost her house and all her belongings during the tragedy of 1999, and because of this she started living with her mother's family.she started living with her first cousin

© Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project
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A broken letter found in one of the ruins, from a mother asking for help and building materials from the Mayor of the area, in order to build a house for her two children. It made me think about the housing crisis in my country, but also the one that affects those who live in La Guaira and still have not been able to have a house after the 1999 disaster. Or the cracks in the house of 67 year old F

© Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project
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People greeting each other in Bolivar street, the principal street of the old town of La Guaira in the hours of the morning. The ruins of some of the numerous collapsed buildings, both because of their age and because of the 1999 mudslide, which covered a large part of these structures with mud, stand out. Many of these ruins are used as bathrooms and garbage dumps.

© Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project
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The portrait of a young Felipe Pérez, now 67 years old. Currently a retired officer. In dialogue with a painting of Armando Reverón -an important painter of the State who lived for many years in Macuto, where he developed much of his artistic work-, the page of a book -where you read a year, and the question "Has everything changed?"-, and and a typographic stamp of some palm trees.In the backgro

© Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project
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Wall of the carpentry shop of Leonardo Delgado, 58 years old, on Bolivar Street in the Historic Center of La Guaira, where an interesting relationship of images is generated, among which I am particularly struck by a poster of former President Hugo Chavez -there were several in the place-, a 2006 calendar of a beer brand with the photo of a woman, and a wooden sign Bienvenido al Cuartel San Carlos

© Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project
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Photomontage of two pictures of a graffiti on Bolivar Street in the historic center of La Guaira.In the background, a piece of paper found in the ruins of one of the buildings, concerning customs operations.The graffiti was modified. You can read that it originally said "Venezuela asks for freedom from Maduro now". And was changed to "Viva Venezuela", and no more.Which denotes the rejection of

© Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project
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Elianys, Alondra, Eduanyelys and another friend of theirs play in one of the alleys of Casco Histórico, one day when they helped me stick a picture of a fisherman on a wall, to generate conversations and relationships with the community.This image made me think of the one on the right, which I saw in my mother's diary, and which is about the Caracas-La Guaira highway, the road that connects both

© Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project
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Photomontage of a typographic stamp of a sun and circles, and a photo of one of the walls in front of the sea near of the old town of La Guaira. To get there you must walk a long way, because these are not waters where people used to bathe, as there are the remains of what was the old port of La Guaira, a place where ships arrived with goods to unload at the Casa Guipozcuana, the old customs house

© Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project
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Photomontage of palm trees near Soublette Avenue, and a portrait of Gabriel, a motorcyclist posing at the motorcycle cab stand that operates transporting people to nearby colonial castles, to different parts of the state and even to Caracas.In the background, a piece of paper found in the ruins of one of the buildings, relating to customs operations.These motorcyclists and cab drivers told me th

© Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project
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A colonial painting and models of wooden ships in one of the rooms of the house -which functions as the museum- of José María España and Manuel Gual -important characters in the history of La Guaira and Venezuela's quest for freedom and independence from the Spanish crown.Idialoga together with Image that dialogues with the image of a fish of the vynil of "Las voces risueñas de Carayaca", and impo

© Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project
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A child plays with discarded Christmas lights. He plays at selecting them, on Bolivar street in La Guaira's Casco Historico. An image that made me think of the stars of the firmament, of the future of the children of the area through typographic stamps of blue stars.

© Freisy González Portales - Image from the Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) photography project
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View from the Historic Center of La Guaira. A cat was prowling around, as it often happens, it is a cat zone.Superimposed a typographic stamp of a sun.