Barceló 61

Barceló 61 is a photographic meditation on memory, loss, and the spaces that shaped my childhood in Villalba, Puerto Rico. Between 1995 and 2000, shortly after completing my postgraduate studies at Yale, I turned my attention to the house, the women, and the geography of the town where I was raised during the 1960s and 70s. Returning after years away, I found myself confronted with the inevitable transformations brought on by time and distance. My perception of Villalba—shaped as much by absence as by presence—compelled me to use photography as a means of reconnecting with what was slipping away.

This series marked a significant departure from my earlier documentary approach. All of the photographs were executed with an 8x10 camera, a format whose precision and formality allowed me to slow down and craft images with a meditative quality. Through this shift in methodology, I sought not only to document, but to engrain each photograph with a nostalgic aura—one that reflected the fragile tension between memory and reality.

At the heart of Barceló #61 are the women who inhabited the house—my great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother—whose presence infused its modest wooden rooms with an almost sacred resonance. Built in 1919, the house stood for six decades before collapsing, taking with it a chapter of family history. What remains are these images: vignettes that preserve the home, the land around it, and those who lived within—granting them, through the lens, a kind of endurance.