Captured during a spontaneous visit to a flea market in Mexico City, this photograph has been transferred onto rusted sheets of corrugated steel, depicting a lively scene of shoppers engaging with artisans. The hasty composition, with its blurred upper half and sharply focused foreground, reflects the vibrant yet chaotic nature of such markets.  The vibrant colors have dulled slightly through the transfer onto the steel, lending the piece a sense of wear, age and foggy recollection.  Flea markets have become significant to my family’s visits to Mexico, offering a space to reclaim fragments of our heritage—objects that serve as tangible reminders of our roots once we return to Canada. Yet, as these cultural environments increasingly cater to tourists, I’ve come to realize that I, too, have become a visitor in my own homeland.  Exploring the intersection of nostalgia and belonging, I question what it means to engage with a cultural space as both an insider and an outsider.

Part of the series: Mining for Some Sort of Continuity

This work consists of a photo emulsion lift from a family image taken by my mother in my grandparents’ home in the late 1980s. The photograph captures a moment in my grandmother’s living room, where my family gathers around a coffee table laden with food and drinks. Fragmented across six copper plates, the image has been manipulated with a heat patina (done by my friend Dee Dee Decay), creating a colorful yet aged effect that conveys the passage of time and the imperfect nature of memory. Titled “The Hour of Friendship,” after a phrase my grandfather often used when hosting family gatherings, this piece reflects a connection to a past I never personally experienced but feel connected to through anecdotes preserved by my mother. After immigrating, this phrase could have become a poignant reminder of the lost communal moments and a yearning for a sense of belonging in a new place, despite this – we used the phrase to remind ourselves that we still had each other to share moments with. The work embodies my attempt to reclaim a piece of familial history, blurring the line between inherited memories and personal experiences.