Andrés Mario de Varona – Our Own Roof
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
from Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood by William Wordsworth
Our Own Roof is a striking non-linear timeline of the progress of Andrés Mario de Varona’s image-making practice. The sequence of his photographs is mostly out of chronological order, leaving the reader to make sense of his development as an artist through his own conversation with himself. The de Varona of 2018 and the de Varona of 2023 speak to each other, processing the events and lessons from the time in between and producing a synthesis for the reader to interpret. Through this temporal dialectic, Our Own Roof provides special insight into de Varona’s process and philosophies on rituals, participation, and the formation of life.
A collection formed over seven years, these photos, in part, portray de Varona’s changing relationship with and attitude toward rituals. His camera—and, by proxy, we, the viewers—are witnesses to these rites, prompting us to contemplate the transformation from documenting to designing rituals and from being an observer to being a participant in them. In his early work, both series CONTACT and TRIALS allow us to glimpse the rituals de Varona is creating as he undergoes major life events.
A collection formed over seven years, these photos, in part, portray de Varona’s changing relationship with and attitude toward rituals.
Informed by his mother’s death, CONTACT is a series that positions the viewer outside of the ceremonies conducted by him and his family. Looking at these images, we feel as though we are witnessing something private and clandestine. However, it is clear that we are not viewing this ritual as it is happening, but rather looking at a process that has already concluded. As his family moves through the mourning period, we see how they handle relics to construct a memorial to their loved one, assisting them in letting her go. The setting in this series is primarily indoors, conjuring nostalgic feelings of the archetypal family home. The pathos is strong, as the images appeal to memories of family life when everyone gathers together for specific purposes—a meal, a game, a television show. Of course, we know that de Varona’s family is gathered for an altogether different purpose, where the matriarch is missing, which evokes even stronger emotions. Death, in CONTACT, is not defined as the end of someone’s life, but rather as an event in the lives of those who survive the deceased.
TRIALS, then, represents the next phase in de Varona’s processing of this “event.” He incorporates death as a permanent fixture in his life moving forward and encourages viewers to adopt this perspective as well. Instead of objects that hold charged and personal memories of a particular individual, we begin to see abstract objects and medical apparatuses that indicate a confrontation with mortality and the urge and will to survive. The surrounding environment in the images shifts from mostly domestic interiors to harsh desert landscapes and the industrial-looking structure de Varona built with his collaborators in New Mexico. The brutality of the arid land in the photos reminds us that survival is not guaranteed but must be fought for against external conditions that often impede life.
De Varona incorporates death as a permanent fixture in his life moving forward and encourages viewers to adopt this perspective as well.
De Varona’s structure—the “Refuge,” as it was once referred to—is only made of three walls, hardly a shelter from the cruelty of the desert. The transition from the safe, protected family home to a space that has boundaries but does not safeguard suggests a desire to have one’s survival be challenged. The images, which also depict radiation masks, brambles from the wilderness, and other scrap materials, evoke a sense of disrupted comfort. The objects de Varona chooses to include in his photos are no longer relics but tools that can harm or help, depending on how we interact with them. In both series, death is present, but in TRIALS, we feel its presence as something walking alongside the figures in the photos, rather than as an absence felt through the loss of a loved one.
In many of these images, we also see de Varona’s meditations on the human body, the land, and placemaking. The high desert, with its difficult and unyielding conditions, shapes and reshapes the bodies of those who dwell there. The body must quickly adapt to the dry climate and the lack of oxygen at high elevation. In this way, the land imprints itself on the body, leaving evidence of survival and transformation. Resilience is a strong theme in these later photographs, evoking triumphant feelings in the viewer.
De Varona asserts his vitality and agency through his photographs—the way he composes images, his choice of subject matter, his constructions—all working to forge a path for a life of victorious survival. The work celebrates the cycles of life without creating a false sense of optimism that suggests life is always beautiful. Rather, it invites us to participate in the muck and grit attendant to living through loss, endings, and beginnings. Each day, each season, each year, we shed parts of ourselves and change into something new. These cycles deserve ceremonies to mark the passage from one phase to another. What de Varona has learned from fully welcoming death into his experience is how to construct these rituals to honor and lead a more authentic life. His work contains and expresses the full spectrum of what it means to live “in the faith that looks through death.”
Andrés Mario de Varona
Witty Books 2024
