The first “it all started” was in India, where people said things to each other with flowers. They hung them on necklaces around their necks, they were in ceremonies, birthdays, weddings and funerals. Later, in Cape Verde, it was difficult to get them, they were expensive and most arrived frozen in cold stores. Alejandra realized the importance that flowers had in her life.
Aces are flordiario: Today Florea.
The second “everything started” was in Madrid, just one year ago today, about to pack our bags to go live in another country. Start like this: “It all started with a loss of references. I took my dog out and didn’t know if the cars that were coming were close or far. Thank goodness the traffic light always ended up turning green. In the end he ended up stumbling with him on the grass at home, him with his wheelchair like the one I’m in now and me trying not to fall.”
“Whenever they asked me, I said that I was like on an uneven level: the bubble outside its square. Now I see myself more like a Daruma, a Japanese doll. The custom is that you make a wish and paint one of its eyes and when it turns You paint the other one. I hope the day comes when I can paint my other eye, even if it’s over my eyepatch.“.
Alejandra uses a wheelchair to move around and wears an eyepatch over her left eye. A special one designed by a friend. She jokes that her best way to promote the book she just published is to record a video like Kate Middleton’s, “although it would have to be retouched, and on top of that she’s not wearing the eyepatch.”
Between the first “everything began” in La India and this last one in Madrid there is one thing in common: her passion for flowersand a sensitivity to tell, in the most delicate way there is (with the fleetingness of the petals), human feelings, especially those from which we try to escape. During the pandemic I published a book full of hope, who was looking for paths of light. Her name was Everything will pass (Asymmetrical editions). Through compositions with flowers he explained the emotional mess that we all go through. She added color and heat to the uncertainty, the fear, the pain…
Now Alejandra publica path of the sun (Asymmetric Editions), “a roller coaster on that path of search for light.” A compilation of feelings, emotions and stages within a process that she tells through sunflowers, lilacs, peonies, roses, tulips, orchids and carnations.
Because between that first “everything started” in India and that last one, in addition to that passion for flowers, there is also a diagnosis.
Alejandra tells it through a yellow Banksias (Banks as Hooker): “Inoperable brain tumor.” The paragraph (titled ‘Diagnosis’) that accompanies the flower is barely a dozen lines, but it begins like this “I still feel the cold from the day they gave me the news”and it ends like this: “I changed the cold for the heat of all those who visit me, write to me, call me, give me flowers… And I don’t burn. It is an eternal heat that never burns.”
IN IMAGES
‘Path of the sun’: a story of survival through flowers
‘Path of the sun’: a story of survival through flowers
PROCESS
At Alejandra’s house there are always many flowers, several bouquets. It is full of heat. Alejandra Garca Fuertes is “Keka” or “Ale” to her friends and family. She finished her degree in journalism and then became a diplomat. She has worked in several countries, such as India, where everything was said with flowers, or Cape Verde, where they were scarce.
She thinks not, but He has actually been a journalist for many years.: all those who have been telling human stories through their flowers.
In these months there has been decompose y recompose (two antupios, one split in half and the other sewn), one life in Pink (the story of the peona, one of his favorites), a Damocles (Indian carnation), radiotherapy (Black hellebore of Hipcrates) and punctures (a sunflower). The first photo he took as soon as they gave him the news was burning dugwhich is the last one that appears in the book.
Your favorite is camouflage. It is a phosphorite yellow orchid that tells the story of a pachyderm that is in a meeting and increasingly feels bigger and more visible. He changes size and his skin becomes rough and rough, while the staff continues (or tries to) with their script.
“The terror of breaking the seat makes him shrink more and more. Nobody wants to be proof that things can go wrong. from one day to the next. The meeting ends and one of the speakers stays and asks the pachyderm: How are you? Are you okay? The pachyderm, surprised, embraces him with all his animal greatness.”
She explains it like this: “It’s the feeling that you are at a table and you are an elephant, because you make visible something that no one wants to see: that at any moment life can go to shit.” She tells it while, laughing, she talks about the Botijo Museum in her town: Toral de los Guzmanes. A space with more than 2,000 botijos, which it turns out are now for sale and that she wants to recover for her flowers.
In Alejandra’s house there are those flowers (they appear in acknowledgments, in order of appearance), there is light and laughter. She says the important thing is to play a lot. An image is repeated a lot in the book: that of her mother stroking her hair, because that lap is “where you forget everything, where nothing has happened and the world stops.”
SUPPORT
The book is called path of the sun because it refers to a poem by Joan Salvat, one of his father’s favorites. Talk about an army of ants that achieve what they set out to do. His text begins: “I make my way and turn to see if the rest of the army is following me. There we are all lined up, like disciplined ants.”
In his book there is also Volar, a flower that emerges very dignified, despite being held by a stone at the base; there is pause, helplessness,intruder, touch I and touch II. But above all there is sustenance, together, family, desires, strength, opportunity, breaths of life, afloat and light. She says: “I like sustenance because of its meaning, because no one lets you fall.”
Actually Today Florea (and Camino al Sol) is not just Alejandra’s project. It’s Pablo and her. Also Juan, his friends and his family. “The author of the photos is mine, but now more than ever I am the director and the executive producer,” she jokes.
They both have a tattoo on their wrist, which is illustrated in the book with two tulips that are joined by filaments. is called Together: “I have you tattooed on my skin. Invisible blades that cross both of us. You and I are us.”
They both discuss the book. They talk about their favorite flowers, the stories behind them, and about and path of the sun It is sad or it is a song to life.
“Let’s see, it’s a little sad,” he jokes.
She disagrees: “Well, I don’t know, there are people who say it’s a hymn to life.”
What it is path of the sun It is a song to love.
(“Despite the regrets, today more than ever: today Floreo, today Florea.” Prologue of path of the sun)