Aglaia Dementeva, edition Violeta Kerszberg
Cartas del medio
Hungarian writer Sándor Márai carried with him, through his travels in Switzerland, Italy, and the United States, a globe and his last Hungarian passport — inside it, a dried leaf from the tree of his childhood. Austrian writer Stefan Zweig traveled with his wooden chess set, which is still kept in his house in Petrópolis, Brazil.
Saving a photo, cooking a childhood flavor, or invoking a loved one with
a scent is not necessarily nostalgia — it’s a way of saying: this still matters.
To find, in those objects, a way to re-signify who we are — and share it.
A chance to make what has been lived become alive again. And to pass it on.
Saving a photo, cooking a childhood flavor, or invoking a loved one with
a scent is not necessarily nostalgia — it’s a way of saying: this still matters.
To find, in those objects, a way to re-signify who we are — and share it.
A chance to make what has been lived become alive again. And to pass it on.
The ship in the image (late 19th to early 20th century) sailed the route between Hamburg and the United States. On board, flavors traveled. A bite of food could be a refuge: the “hamburg steak” was one such recipe — an attempt to recover the taste of home. In New York, that intimate dish would become something else: the global hamburger.
Mixed among the bodies, across the ocean traveled a set of dishes with the crest of a school a father once attended, a broken watch gifted by
a friend, a ridiculously large hat,
a deck of cards from a favorite game with no one to play it with abroad,
a ten-kilo samovar, a matchbox bearing the image of the city left behind. Handfuls of homeland.
Mixed among the bodies, across the ocean traveled a set of dishes with the crest of a school a father once attended, a broken watch gifted by
a friend, a ridiculously large hat,
a deck of cards from a favorite game with no one to play it with abroad,
a ten-kilo samovar, a matchbox bearing the image of the city left behind. Handfuls of homeland.
The ship in the image (late 19th to early 20th century) sailed the route between Hamburg and the United States. On board, flavors traveled. A bite of food could be a refuge: the “hamburg steak” was one such recipe — an attempt to recover the taste of home. In New York, that intimate dish would become something else: the global hamburger.
Mixed among the bodies, across the ocean traveled a set of dishes with the crest of a school
a father once attended, a broken watch gifted by a friend,
a ridiculously large hat, a deck of cards from a favorite game with no one to play it with abroad, a ten-kilo samovar, a matchbox bearing the image of the city left behind. Handfuls of homeland.
Hungarian writer Sándor Márai carried with him, through his travels in Switzerland, Italy, and the United States, a globe and his last Hungarian passport — inside it, a dried leaf from the tree of his childhood. Austrian writer Stefan Zweig traveled with his wooden chess set, which is still kept in his house in Petrópolis, Brazil.
Saving a photo, cooking
a childhood flavor, or invoking
a loved one with a scent is not necessarily nostalgia — it’s a way of saying: this still matters.
To find, in those objects, a way to re-signify who we are — and share it.
A chance to make what has been lived become alive again. And to pass it on.
Mixed among the bodies, across the ocean traveled a set of dishes with the crest of a school
a father once attended, a broken watch gifted by a friend,
a ridiculously large hat, a deck of cards from a favorite game with no one to play it with abroad, a ten-kilo samovar, a matchbox bearing the image of the city left behind. Handfuls of homeland.
Hungarian writer Sándor Márai carried with him, through his travels in Switzerland, Italy, and the United States, a globe and his last Hungarian passport — inside it, a dried leaf from the tree of his childhood. Austrian writer Stefan Zweig traveled with his wooden chess set, which is still kept in his house in Petrópolis, Brazil.
Saving a photo, cooking
a childhood flavor, or invoking
a loved one with a scent is not necessarily nostalgia — it’s a way of saying: this still matters.
To find, in those objects, a way to re-signify who we are — and share it.
A chance to make what has been lived become alive again. And to pass it on.
The ships that crossed the Atlantic carrying European immigrants to the New World — and in truth, every mode of transport to this day — carried more than just bodies. They also carried the remnants of a life:
a letter never sent, a book gifted by a first love, a piece of advice on how to grind cumin and mix it with saffron. On those long journeys, objects weren’t just useful — they had another secret task: to stitch together the pain of uprooting.
a letter never sent, a book gifted by a first love, a piece of advice on how to grind cumin and mix it with saffron. On those long journeys, objects weren’t just useful — they had another secret task: to stitch together the pain of uprooting.
They endure. In the corners of antique shops, or on some shelf at home: a dress whose fabric has worn thin over time, a saucepan blackened by constant use, a book warped by humidity. These objects remain — not despite the marks of time, but because of them. It is in those marks that their stories are held. And someone, at some point, chose not to let them go.
Dresses, wallets, kitchen utensils, books — everyday objects that travel with us from home to home, from language to language, from generation to generation.
They live alongside us: they wear out, they break, we fix them. Sometimes, even broken, we keep them not for what they do, but for what they hold: a story, a fragment of someone. For that mysterious power they have to preserve pieces of our memory.
They live alongside us: they wear out, they break, we fix them. Sometimes, even broken, we keep them not for what they do, but for what they hold: a story, a fragment of someone. For that mysterious power they have to preserve pieces of our memory.
Dresses, wallets, kitchen utensils, books — everyday objects that travel with us from home to home, from language to language, from generation to generation.
They live alongside us: they wear out, they break, we fix them. Sometimes, even broken, we keep them not for what they do, but for what they hold: a story,
a fragment of someone. For that mysterious power they have to preserve pieces of our memory.
They endure. In the corners of antique shops, or on some shelf at home: a dress whose fabric has worn thin over time, a saucepan blackened by constant use, a book warped by humidity. These objects remain — not despite the marks of time, but because of them. It is in those marks that their stories are held. And someone, at some point, chose not to let them go.
The ships that crossed the Atlantic carrying European immigrants to the New World — and in truth, every mode of transport to this day — carried more than just bodies. They also carried the remnants of a life: a letter never sent, a book gifted by a first love, a piece of advice on how to grind cumin and mix it with saffron. On those long journeys, objects weren’t just useful — they had another secret task: to stitch together the pain of uprooting.
They live alongside us: they wear out, they break, we fix them. Sometimes, even broken, we keep them not for what they do, but for what they hold: a story,
a fragment of someone. For that mysterious power they have to preserve pieces of our memory.
They endure. In the corners of antique shops, or on some shelf at home: a dress whose fabric has worn thin over time, a saucepan blackened by constant use, a book warped by humidity. These objects remain — not despite the marks of time, but because of them. It is in those marks that their stories are held. And someone, at some point, chose not to let them go.
The ships that crossed the Atlantic carrying European immigrants to the New World — and in truth, every mode of transport to this day — carried more than just bodies. They also carried the remnants of a life: a letter never sent, a book gifted by a first love, a piece of advice on how to grind cumin and mix it with saffron. On those long journeys, objects weren’t just useful — they had another secret task: to stitch together the pain of uprooting.
SOON