The seminal image of this piece was taken from a 8mm film shot by my grandfather in Caracas (Venezuela), during a party celebrating my father’s 2nd birthday. The faces/hair of the girls as well as the background have been discarded here. The dresses with their hypnotic movement and airiness, their delicacy and similarities, are the only remains of the original sequence, the only witness to the time the film was shot. The piece evokes the past and the fleeting nature of childhood but it is also anchored in a very specific socio-historical context. The title “Caracas 1953” refers to the place and date at which the original footage was taken. My grandparents fled Eastern Europe in 1942 and settled in Venezuela. Although the girls running down the slope were born and raised miles away from Europe, its annihilated cities and populations, they carry the burden of their parents’ loss and traumatic exile. They become anonymous vessels for a culture they are geographically and temporarily removed from.