Loss is an intrinsic part of life- life, even in its best iteration, demands that you must eventually let

go of everything you cherish. You gradually become alienated from the ever changing world around

you, as people and places once familiar vanish or become entirely unrecognizable. In La Mala

Memoria, Arango explores heritage, family, nostalgia, and the fragility of memory through the lens of

loss and mortality.

Family albums possess the unique ability of preserving memory, of depicting what once was; your

parents before they've grown old and less capable, your childhood home before the paint had started

to chip and the magnolia trees in the garden had withered away. These images are the very

foundation of this project, and Arango utilizes his very own family album. Yet, the unrelenting current of

time necessitates the loss or destruction of physical images, leaving you only with the longing and

grief. In an attempt to preserve his family photos, Arango had decided to digitally scan them. However,

any digital alteration revealed the endless squared channel that sat underneath- there was no depth,

no dimension. Arango states that it is perhaps in the pursuit of conservation that these memories slip

away from you- it is simply a paradox of itself.

La Mala Memoria displays this concept through a series of images, all of which have been

reconstructed by the artist in order to symbolize the people and places that have faded away through

time.