Secrets
Project Statement
Download PDF Project Information
I left by boat from Tigre Port in Buenos Aires state toward Martin Garcia Island where I arrived after three hours. The strategic location of this island has created since immemorial times a dispute between Spain and Portugal regarding its possession. Such confrontation was felt in Argentina and Uruguay along the years. Nowadays the island belongs to Argentina. At the end of the XIX Century the island served as a lazaretto. Later on it became a prison for political prisoners where Hipolito Yrigoyen, Arturo Frondizi and Juan Domingo Peron were detained. As of 1950 the prison was used as a prison for common prisioners as well and it became more populated. Ruben Dario, a well known Nicaraguan poet, was one of the outstanding persons who visited and lived in the island . Since 1973 the island is considered a natural reserve for the conservation and preservation of the native wildlife.
When I arrived at the island for the first time, I was really moved by the bursting of nature among the ruins of the prison. These ruins remain as witnesses of the seclusion of politicians, common prisoners and deserters. I felt very touched by all those whispered stories that were drawn in those walls. When I left Martin Garcia Island I knew I was going to come back. While I was walking by the ruins of the prison, the cemetery, the Chinese neighborhood, the island was telling me all its history secrets. Some people told me about their lives living in that place. After a while, I knew that my father used to go the island to fish there and he really liked to stay there. Without knowing it, I followed the paths that he traced for me.