Photographs by Tatiana Parcero*

Text by Mar Gámiz

I

When one approaches a tree and observes its bark, touches it, one can guess from its wrinkles if the earth it feeds off is rich in nutrients or not, if its top has enough leaves to provide shade to the trunk, you can even advise if rodents or human beings have tried to impact the geometry of its trace. A tree is a center of shared memories, captured in its skin and its tracks.

II

Many years ago, men stripped the trees of their barks to write their own memory on them, to protray their battles and their territory. In the first traces of the latter, the origins of a discipline that does not expire can be found: cartography, which holds the vegetal vestige in its name: charta, from the Greek χάρτης, properly designated the paper obtained from the barks, although it later specified and meant “any sheet of written paper” and much later, “a map.”

III

Using her body as the driving force and photography as the imaging plane, Tatiana Parcero composes the series Interior cartography. In it, the artist is both the memory-filled tree full and the charta or map that reveals that saturation of history, time and territory. Going from the particular (her body, her experience), to the general (the symbology she superimposes on her photographs, the maps, the flora and fauna that cover them), Tatiana seeks to create an inclusive reflection that awakens introspection and recognition.