Gabriel Diaz

Gabriel Diaz

June 6-29, 1996

In my country 34.9% of children (approximately 2,500,000 Argentines between the ages of 6 and 18) live in chronic conditions of extreme poverty. “El Chino” is missing a leg because he fell from a train onto the railway tracks while he was under the effects of glue. “El Polaco” fell in love with Valeria, who is a prostitute. He tried to change her way of life and was found strangled in Constitucion Station. Nico and Vanessa are kissing and making love under the motorway. Veronica is 12 years old; she’s expecting a baby. Dante and Gabriela are a couple; they look after a doll. Jorgito sleeps in a box and Morado finds his shelter in the gutter. “El Chino” lives under the railway platform. Goyo sniffs glue. The glue takes the hunger away. The glue cannot mend their broken souls. The glue makes them forget for a while and helps them to go on – to go on escaping towards nowhere. I think of these photographs and these fragile lives which I want to understand but I can’t, so I take photographs. I photograph what I don’t understand, my frustration, my pain, my own wounds.