In this exhibit, Ana Werren conducts a vulnerable exploration of the space that resides between memory and imagination. The work included is an extension of the creative process that continues the artist’s conversation with her father’s archive.

Werren shares the result of this ongoing exchange through objects and images, reconciling the duality of the home as a place of emotional refuge and a tangible architectonic structure. The dialogue expands beyond the archive—it is a living conversation between the artist, the walls, and her parents. Upon searching for her father, she also finds her mother. This series of works is a study that pushes the boundaries of materiality to discover, within walls, the spaces left behind and those constructed within our minds.

The home takes a starring role in the work as the a space where the first traces of individuality take shape. The loss of this site, heavy with personal meaning, unchains in the artist an urge to explore the deepest layers of self-history, revealing countless new connections. Memories hidden within walls are then revealed by cracks, light, and prints. In seemingly empty spaces, Werren seeks to merge the past with moments from dreams, holding tightly onto the sense of security a home can provide.

The series is comprised of four chapters:

In chapter one: “Se construye a partir de diálogos silenciosos” (“One builds from silent dialogues") each piece reveals unfinished embroidery and empty spaces, in which Werren fuses memories with possibilities. Just like personal experiences, the cross-stitches remain unfinished, and thus open to reinterpretation. They remind us through charming visuals that we are perpetually incomplete, a permanent work in progress that evolves through interpersonal connections.

Chapter two, “El peso de lo que habitó” (The weight of what was”), illustrates an absence turned narrative. The presence of chair is revealed only through an outline imprinted on a rug—a memory in negative space. We are not familiar with  this object, except through the markings it left behind. The chair transcends its physical absence through this imprint; it exists, precisely because it has ceased to do so.

In chapter three: “Borrar no es lo mismo que desocupar” (“To erase is not the same as to vacate”) Werren presents intervened house plans as an exploration of the tension between what endures and what disappears. We are invited to reflect on how each space we inhabit becomes permeated with our presence, which fuses with the walls and ties itself to the silence. It is precisely these traces that the artist seeks to transform, erasing and creating—weaving a labyrinth of memories through which we can walk through, in order to rediscover fragments that can only be understood as a whole. This intervention seeks to emphasize that which is lost to time, attempting to eternalize the transient nature everything that inhabited the space. It matters only when it is lost.

Through these markings and scars, chapter four "Tu presencia es más notoria cuando ya no estás” (“Your presence is more notorious when you are no longer here”) carries out an introspection in photo negatives, capturing the erosion of pieces that are left behind, becoming testimonies on the wall. This process culminates in the use of cyanotype prints, encouraging reflection on the remains of our experiences. These images, moments caught between light and shadow, become not unlike the memories that grip the walls of our conscience.

Thus, Ana Werren challenges the idea of preserving as an act of endlessly postponing. For the artist, remembering is to re-experience a memory intensely only to let it go, a deliberate reclamation of the process of grief. It also serves as a reminder that these lost dialogues are part of the nature of the conscience, which inhabits the space between memory and imagination. Remember, dialogue, and then destroy.

— Andrés Azmitia. Guatemala, march 2024 (translated from Spanish by Inés Anleu Gil).