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

I propose to tell a story of the old town of La Guaira through visual experimentation, port documents, family archives, objects found in ruins, a typography, and in the houses of its own inhabitants. This place is an important part of my family history

In this project I propose to tell a story of the historic center of La Guaira through visual experimentation and walks through its streets, looking for the generation of graphic material, through port documents, family archives and objects found in its various buildings in ruins, a typography that works since the nineteenth century and in the houses of its own inhabitants, which allowed me to read this old town that I knew during my childhood, and that is an important part of my personal and family history.


La Guaira is the closest coast to the city of Caracas (Venezuela), and one of the oldest and most important ports in the country (especially during the eighteenth century), as a center of commercial operations of goods and fruits, such as cocoa. However, the years have passed and this territory seems to be 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.

Among the streets of the historic center of La Guaira I have been reflecting on notions such as memory, the present, identity, the political uses of historic sites and of history itself; the great lack of drinking water, the pain and traces of tragedies and river floods (one of the most serious occurred in 1999), and on the other hand, the bluest skies, salsa music and the smiles of the thriving people who inhabit the lands of this old town, where all the streets reach the sea.

© 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 typographic stamp of a rudder and a ship, a photo of houses in the principal street of the old town of La Guaira. And 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 manage "bodegas". Friday, November, 22, 2023

© 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 historic center. 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. Thursday, November, 14, 2023

© 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 in one of the higher areas of the old town of La Guaira. Both are 87 years old. Ligia started living in this house after she got married, and Cristina after she lost her house and all her belongings during the tragedy of 1999. Tuesday, July, 9, 2024.

© 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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My great-grandparents, my grandmother's sisters and my mother Freya as a baby. My grandmother Cecilia probably took this picture. They grew up in La Guaira and some of them still live there. On the photograph you can read "Remembrance of my beloved parents", in my grandmother's handwriting. Part of my family archive

© 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. Both images are part of my family archives.

© 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 sea simulated on a cloth and a woman bathing on the beach, besides 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. Saturday, November, 2, 2023

© 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. The star of La Guaira. Tuesday, July, 9, 2024

© 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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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, before the tragedy of 1999. Historic center of La Guaira. Thursday, November, 14, 2023.

© 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 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. Friday, November, 22, 2023

© 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. Tuesday, November, 14, 2023

© 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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Leonardo Delgado, 58, with his assistant. Delgado is the owner of this carpentry shop on Bolivar Street in the historic center of La Guaira. Next to a star that decorates Vargas Square. In the center of this old town. Tuesday, November, 14, 2024

© 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, a 2006 calendar of a beer brand with the photo of a woman, and a wooden sign "Welcome to San Carlos Barracks". Tuesday, July, 9, 2024.

© 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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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. Tuesday, July, 9, 2024.

© 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 old town of La Guaira, 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 from my mother's diary, about the Caracas-La Guaira highway. Tuesday, October, 1, 2024

© 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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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-, and the page of a book -where you read a year, and the question "Has everything changed?"-, and a typographic stamp of some palm trees, with a document concerning customs operations. Sunday, July, 7, 2024.

© 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 the house -today a 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. In dialog with the image of a fish from a vynil of a group of music of the state and a document of custom operations. Saturday. November, 16, 2024.

© 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, 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 here in La Guaira, after the 1999 disaster. And the cracks in the house of 67 year old man named Felipe Pérez, near to a river. Sunday, July, 7, 2024.

Una estrella en una ola de mar (A star in a sea wave) by Freisy González Portales

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