Artist, Amanda Iheme: My name is Amanda Iheme. This body of work called Memories was really to help me cope with the grief that came from the loss of Casa de Fernandez. The house was torn down in, like, 2016. I could not walk in that area without wanting to cry, so I avoided that area until 2018 when I was able to go back there.
For each of the buildings that I went to, I tried to pick up something that reminded me of the space. Because when you die, you leave behind memories of your existence. I went to the Old Secretariat, an administrative building. I found transportation tickets. I saw people’s passports on the floor. And I found some documents that were meant to be secret documents, but they were just left lying around.
The point was the healing lesson that I needed to learn, which was that everything you love will die, and in the end, you’re going to be left with the memories and that's all you’ll have. And it’s okay for things to change. It’s okay for them to be redefined. It’s okay if they can never be restored, they can be reincarnated in a different form. It’s okay to let Casa de Fernandez go, you can still have the memory of this building, even if all you have is just this brick of stone.