Minus Two (-2)

-2, two levels underground in the hospital in which I work as a chemist, is the place where precious medical records of patients are stored, among abandoned instruments, useless materials, and all the items and apparatuses the departments relinquish. There are several stories about -2: thieves that have been hidden or hide their loot there, homeless and immigrants who sleep there, rodents and insects that inhabit the place. -2 has been flooded several times and many records have been destroyed. Personnel go down there reluctantly, almost with fear and never alone.

With this project I am not interested in presenting what -2 really looks like. Instead, I wish to evoke the atmosphere of a place infused with mystery and secrecy. I am photographing not only the archives that have been deposited there but also things that have been found or are related to this place. It seems that -2 serves more as a passageway before the total destruction of these materials rather than as a place where they are temporarily stored and hidden in a state of stasis.

Waiting for their inevitable and awful fate of becoming pulp, these archives are open to future interpretation. The nostalgic impulse toward the abandoned medical records arouse not only the slight possibility that these documents could belong to a beloved person but our compulsive desire to rescue them and, through them, our own existence—by preventing forgetfulness and stopping the disappearance of things. Even though for those who have passed away, their medical records are what remain.