Through my camera I observe human gestures and their interaction with the places that they inhabit. I capture spaces filled with the trace and emotion of human presence. The walls and the objects confine the vestige and come alive interacting within the absence of witnesses, becoming the essence of the site they occupy. The images combine, in certain way, the appropriation of places and apprehended realities that become stories about rooms and matter enclosing emotional and cultural record. The familiarity arouses through the nostalgic and the content of loneliness in the forgotten. My lens serves as a medium to feel the sensibility of fields where life has been lived. The photographs are evidence of the texture of the space and the experience of being somewhere where objects have been testimony of time and beholders of memories. The photographs that I am showing here belong to the series Hotel Monte Rosa. A hotel located in downtown Madeira, Portugal, that was once owned and managed by my grandfather. The small four-story hotel operated for 50 years, accommodating tourists that wanted to stay at the heart of the island. Unfortunately, in 2008 the hotel had to close down as the economy collapsed and it became harder to compete with large hotel chains. Moreover, my grandfather´s health started to deteriorate and he had to move to Venezuela where the rest of his family resides. These photographs evoke the silence of lonely, void spaces, marked by the passage of time. The life of this place departed with its last occupants and its owner, who had lived in the hotel and dedicated himself to its success. The rooms now bear only the trace of human presence. Hotel Monte Rosa is a reminder of the impact of globalization, which can lead to the decay of traditional small businesses. But above all, it is a refuge to memories. It represents the end of a chapter in my family history, marked by the loss of its patriarch and the detachment of its heirs.
