Polina Izvekova

Kiosco 1985

Project completed at Residencia Epecuén, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2024)

When a place is abandoned by people, it seems to speak to you directly: "You must see how I died." Villa Epecuén is one such place, deserted after a catastrophic flood.

Nature remains indifferent, preoccupied with its own cycles, while human material culture lingers—its physical traces outlasting the collapse of history and social structures. Even long after we are gone, tangible evidence of our presence endures, visible to those who choose to notice it.

The objects we touch daily, the items we casually purchase at a kiosk or store, become silent witnesses of our existence. Depending on their rate of decay, these objects hold the memory of our presence for years to come.

In this project, I created a "pretend kiosk" to explore the material traces left by people. The kiosk acts as a portal to the dream of the 1980s, a time when Villa Epecuén was a thriving tourist destination. In the midst of ruins, the sight of familiar, everyday items raises a haunting question: What if the objects still carry the presence of the people who once inhabited this place?

The project involved archival and museum research in the nearby city of Carhué, Buenos Aires Province. The result was a mock kiosk installed in the window of a destroyed house in Villa Epecuén.

Medium: Oil on cardboard, 160×100 cm.