SIGO COSIENDO EN LA FÁBRICA
"Sigo cosiendo en la fábrica" works with fragments of a letter written by Elsa Cubas, Tamara Cubas's aunt, during her exile. Tamara Cubas's voice reads the text.
FAMILY CONTEXT
Elsa Cubas is Tamara Cubas's aunt, the sister of Luis Cubas.
CREDITS
Year: 2012
Type: Installation / Digital video
Voice: Tamara Cubas, based on texts from letters by Elsa Cubas.
Text editing: Sebastián Alonso.
Audio recording: Francisco Lapetina.
Exhibition: El día más hermoso, Montevideo 2012.
- Voice: Tamara Cubas
- Texts: Letters by Elsa Cubas (Tamara's aunt)
- Text editing: Sebastián Alonso
- Audio recording: Francisco Lapetina
VIDEO
AUDIO TEXT
I'm still sewing at the factory 8 hours a day every day is shorter at this time of year I spend the whole week without seeing the sun in the morning when I leave it's night, when I come back around 4:30 in the afternoon it's getting dark it's an immense concrete square with no windows daylight doesn't reach us I feel completely crushed
A few days ago I began a kind of epistolary inquiry
I wrote three letters to Montevideo and Buenos Aires
to jorge, Luis and Gambon in these letters I ask them for news of you I was thinking that maybe you were dead
I hope you get through the winter in peace don't go selling flowers in the rain on those cold damp Buenos Aires nights today my letter will be short
I'm not in good spirits I don't really know why I don't feel bad it's just that now I'm always working and I'm always tired, I suppose the same happens to you this business of spending your life working is the most tiresome thing
What possibilities are there when you come back after having been away 7 years
As for our future together it's hard to know what will happen I dream of going back he dreams of going back
6 months in each place would be the solution
Two possible little tales stories of two little sisters who traveled different roads and met with the same fate
and the anguish of two separated women with two children after 40 sister we are branches of the same trunk
It's a matter of training
or of a scientific stance toward the fact anguish is an illness after anguish comes depression its natural consequence the symptoms of these are caused by certain nearby causes to eliminate them I would have to commit a crime or several so I learn to live with anguish and depressions between one pit and the next you come up for air you clear your head
you take stock of what was done and undone you get ready for the next pit
with a bit more experience homespun philosophy
We'll be a family at last you'll see better than we were the way you always wanted us to be
This is a difficult age you happened to live in a difficult family
that was going through a difficult stage all in all a heap of difficulties
I'm going to begin a new stage, I'm going with a willing spirit and determined I'm going to make the necessary effort to adapt and integrate into that society.
The houses are comfortable and cozy. Ours is carpeted throughout, a real luxury. Despite all these comforts, I intend to go back to my small, beloved Montevideo as soon as possible. Even if I have to go back to eating rice and drinking bitter mate,
Life is to be shared with human beings, not with things. I think I've had to go through bitter times and that I must try to make the most of this life that I am enjoying. After all, I can't do anything else, I'm forced to be here.
She, from what Mom tells me, has taken it with serenity and strength. It seems she has recovered and is in better spirits. I won't write any more; I don't even know if my letters reach you, if you don't answer I'll think you've moved or gone to another country
We have always been told: building socialism is a very hard task, strewn with difficulties.
Here I am, comfortably settled and enjoying the advantages of capitalism. I'm not happy, I would trade my fortune for the chance to take part in the beautiful task of building a new life.
Unfortunately I'm still the same. Exile has shown me that I can be good for nothing. These days I'm living an almost vegetative life. The only thing that saves me a little is reading.
I need to feel useful again.
For two and a half years I haven't spoken to anyone. My relationship with the rest of the human race comes down to my conversations with Carolina!! Well, maybe I'm exaggerating a little; but not much.
I have exactly 4 friends whom I see now and then. They're people I don't have much in common with. And whenever I get together with them. I understand that what happens to me happens to hundreds of others in different parts of the world.
Mirta spent four months shut in a cell, held incommunicado. This letter will reach you in two months, so it will already be old news.
Mom doesn't say so, but I think she doesn't write anymore because she feels very bad, she doesn't want to sadden us any further.
I respected your silence, and the best way to do so is to fall silent in turn.
Last summer I planted some tomatoes in a little garden behind the house. If you have some free time I advise you to try it. Instead of scrubbing floors and fighting with the kids, cultivate your garden.
The remarks you make in your letter about exile are a bit subjective. It's easy to keep the revolutionary spirit alive living in a socialist country. But not everyone has had that luck.
I have no contact with Uruguayans, except by letter, in this city I'm the only oriental.
People wear down, grow tired, grow old.
The waiting is long, you lose perspective, the homeland is far away, the heart shrivels!
This year will be different for all of us, with Mirta free we'll feel happier.
As for my loves; they're going well, but I don't know why I've lost the enthusiasm I had at first.
Everything is the same as always, I work, I do my political work, I eat and sleep, now and then I make love. It's winter here, really cold, 30 degrees below 0!
This seems so absurd to me that it has taken away my wish to go back.
This year I'll turn 50, I've become more cautious.
Gregorio went back to Chile. I don't think we'll see each other again. So it's important that you have his photo (Mom) or that you know his surname.
I'll tell you that the feeling that prevails in me right now is uncertainty. I don't want to stay here. I'm afraid of going back.
When I can I'll return to Uruguay, meanwhile here I stay.
I am 51 years old.
It's a sunny, windy autumn day, with frayed clouds, a pale blue sky. The trees have lost almost all their leaves, the grass is turning a dirty yellow;
a few days ago the trees had the beautiful colors of autumn but the south wind that has been blowing has left them bare.