Across Borders of Memory and Photography - NYT
Across Borders of Memory and Photography
http://www.karenmiranda.com
In Guayaquil’s Parque Seminario, iguanas are everywhere. Karen Miranda-Rivadeneira grew up terrified of them.
Ms. Miranda-Rivadeneira, 29, is not so fond of pigeons, either, and when she was working on a photo project to recreate, or restage, memories from her childhood in Ecuador, she and her mother trekked around Queens — where she now lives — casting pigeons as stand-ins for the iguanas. They tried Woodside. They tried Jackson Heights. The resulting pictures, however, did not satisfy her.
Finally, her mother said: “You know, you were really afraid of iguanas. If you really want to make this image real, we should just go to Ecuador and when we’re there, you’ll get used to it.” That iguana-phobia had lingered into adulthood, and returning to the Parque Seminario with her mother was “not only about orchestrating a memory,” Ms. Miranda-Rivadeneira said, but also. “It was about dealing with something that really bothered me, that I’m really afraid of.”
So, she stepped into an enclosure where her mother was feeding the creatures bananas — and she got her picture.
http://www.karenmiranda.com
In Guayaquil’s Parque Seminario, iguanas are everywhere. Karen Miranda-Rivadeneira grew up terrified of them.
Ms. Miranda-Rivadeneira, 29, is not so fond of pigeons, either, and when she was working on a photo project to recreate, or restage, memories from her childhood in Ecuador, she and her mother trekked around Queens — where she now lives — casting pigeons as stand-ins for the iguanas. They tried Woodside. They tried Jackson Heights. The resulting pictures, however, did not satisfy her.
Finally, her mother said: “You know, you were really afraid of iguanas. If you really want to make this image real, we should just go to Ecuador and when we’re there, you’ll get used to it.” That iguana-phobia had lingered into adulthood, and returning to the Parque Seminario with her mother was “not only about orchestrating a memory,” Ms. Miranda-Rivadeneira said, but also. “It was about dealing with something that really bothered me, that I’m really afraid of.”
So, she stepped into an enclosure where her mother was feeding the creatures bananas — and she got her picture.