What This Key Opens
Keys usually open doors, lockers, or even journals… mines open conversations.
I dropped sixty keys throughout town - from Little Haiti to North Miami. Each, labeled with my contact information. I offered to take their portrait to whoever found the key and made the decision to reach out. Some accepted the offer, and I invited them to join me in the studio for a session.
The photos were taken with a 4x5 view camera, an imposing object that claims attention. Yet, a lost key requires attention. I use that big camera because its form is fascinating to me and often to the ones portrayed with it. It requires concentration to set and to focus on the subject. It produces high-detail negatives that could be printed very large. The film sheets used are expensive. They take careful planning, exposing one by one.
While I was in the process of spreading keys throughout the city and pinning the locations on a map, I realized I was going in the opposite direction from where my partner usually lives his life. He mostly goes to the South. I go to the North. I moved in 2022 to the United States from Brasil because of our relationship. I realized that I spread out the keys to claim a place, pushing me to position myself in this territory.
Dropping keys has been a way to navigate the urban space and create connections on my own.