Andrea Salerno

When I think of the UAE I think of the discovery of the ephemeral as a state of things, of life. This speaks much more of the strength behind the print that remains and that changed places also, like the dunes of the desert. Because that which moves is matter to create; it’s life. 

Understanding the place from which you come to create in the place where you are. 

This is my first and most important revelation so far and from which I begin to understand the deep connection between the Middle East and Venezuela and the Middle East and Argentina. Especially when it comes to gastronomy. And it is not as simple as the use of spices, but also the way in which we share food, the importance of the family ritual of cooking and, above all, the generous sharing of food. 

Perhaps there is nothing more ephemeral than food. It certainly traces a memory but its passage through our lives is ephemeral because, even if it is a repetitive ritual, we will never eat the same thing even if we were to cook the same recipe, just as the desert is never the same at daybreak. 

For this reason, thinking of gastronomy as an intangible migrant, which takes shape once it has run aground in a kitchen, personally inspires me to continue in this state of fascination that comes to life when I recognize similarities between cultures, showing that our stories always intersect with each other. 

The Middle East, as seen from Latin America -be it Venezuela or Argentina-, seems very far away and yet feels so close. 

Those are the sparks from which the narrative of my photographic projects is nourished and which, here, in the United Arab Emirates, I find everywhere: the distances, the proximity, and the intersections between cultures. Because in the end, between cultures, we store more stories in common than differences.

So, perhaps, storing is that exercise of memory, with which the ephemeral revives, again and again, changing the state of life and of things. The storage of memory, that intangible that transforms the ephemeral and gives it substance, like a flavor or a recipe.

Andrea Salerno J. 

Abu Dhabi, April of 2022.