The Clock of Life

Santiago Fernández Borda's project for My Family Story 2024. ANU-Museum of the Jewish People

Santiago Fernández Borda

The clock of life is the box that holds the treasures of my family. Through objects and photos, I take a journey from the arrival of my grandparents in Argentina to the hour I was born, at 3 a.m. exactly, according to the clock's hands. I complete my creation with an endless film in which fragments of a letter in Italian, prepared by my father, and a song in Hebrew, sung by my mother are heard, taken from a songbook, a gift from my grandfather Reuben, who participated in the Six-Day War. The work invites you to listen to the sound of my great-grandfather Natalio's sewing machine, that sewed uniforms, to the engine of the ship that brought my great-grandfather, Juan, from Italy, to feel the smells of the fields at dawn where my grandmother, Aurora, milked her cows, to the smell of the medicines prepared by my great-grandmother Teresa.
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