Connected To Place

Words & Images by Mariela Ordóñez

Photo Essay | Issue 02

My boyfriend and I have had similar experiences in terms of the places where we grew up and spent most of our childhood. We both lived in natural surroundings. Currently, we have been living together for four years in Buenos Aires, a bustling city with a population of three million people. As both of us are photographers, we like to spend one day a week taking pictures and exploring a new location in the city in order to reconnect with the feeling of seeing and experiencing something new for the first time, a feeling that we constantly had as children. This helps us stay connected with our inner child and also makes it easier for us to stay connected with the city, because at this moment in our lives, we cannot be in nature as much as we would like.

These are pictures I took on our most recent visit to a new place. This particular neighborhood is very special to me because it is where Julio Cortázar, my favorite writer from Argentina, used to live. The neighborhood feels very magical and is very quiet. There is a hopscotch painted on the same street where Cortázar used to live in honor of his most famous book called Rayuela (Hopscotch in English). Additionally, there is a small place in a park where people can go to leave books and take another in exchange, which is a beautiful tradition. It is called La Maga (she is the protagonist in Rayuela). We definitely felt immersed in one of Cortázar's stories while we were there.

Mariela is a photographer from Argentina. She firmly believes that the act of taking photographs is not just about documenting something but about interpreting what she sees.

She strives to create photographs that are not only visually appealing but also emotionally meaningful, conveying her personal experiences and emotions through her art.