Merli Castaño
Un·familiar
Un·familiar
29.0469° N - 13.5899° W
Merli Castaño
This work explores the relationship between landscape and memory , between what we perceive and what we project onto an unfamiliar territory. Approaching new landscapes is also a way of confronting our own perception—what we believe we see, what we interpret , and what we inevitably transform through our gaze.The use of mirrors and prisms in this project responds to the intention of creating an image that is notmerely a representation of the place but an invitation to perceive it through fragmentation, superposition,and uncertainty. The photographic image becomes a subjective cartography, where the boundaries betweenwater and land, between the horizon and the human silhouette, dissolve into a visual dialogue in constanttransformation. It is an attempt to understand that a landscape is not only what is seen but also what itevokes, what it carves into our memory.
Lanzarote emerges as a land of extreme contrasts: the solidity of volcanic rock and the fluidity of the ocean,the intense light and deep shadows, the aridity of the earth and the vastness of the sky. The intention is not to claim or explain this landscape but to acknowledge its overwhelming presence and the way it places usbefore our own smallness. In this process, photography ceases to be a static document and becomes asurface in motion—a mirror where the territory unfolds and reveals new dimensions.I present these images in a leporello, where they coexist as a visual ecosystem, reflecting a landscape that isnever fixed, that shifts with light, with time, and with the viewer.
More than a linear narrative, this work offersan open experience, where the gaze moves freely, uncovering unexpected relationships between fragmentsof the environment. Through this proposal, I question how we inhabit the unknown, how we connect with aplace, and how we find echoes of our own memory within it.