I inhabited this house long before residents arrived from other countries. My contribution to an exchange of value was to give classes to Los Pequeños Aprendices. This helped me in developing my project in a more comfortable way, given that as time passed, the place gradually –with- out my realizing it– took hold of me. The noise, the silence, the neighbors, the neighborhood, Nico, Luz, Lucrecia, Gloria, my friends from church, the young people from the artists’ program at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.
During the month of October [2009], new residents arrived and a connection was immediately created, in spite of our speaking different languages. One of the things that brought us together was looking at one another’s work. There, I understood their world and their way of thinking better and my work did the same for them.
One day I decided to draw, to leave a trace in the place where I had been and that I had been a part of. I covered my hair with paint and set out walking. I used my head to think, I inhabited my body and my hands drew.
There is no territory that one knows better than one’s own body, and it is from there that others are conquered.
— Gabriel Chaile