Visual PDF available online: grunt.ca.
Published July 2022.
Translation to Text Author: Keimi Nakashima-Ocha
Introduction to alternative text catalogue:
The alternative text catalogue project was created and is maintained by the staff on the Accessibility Committee at grunt gallery. Our approach to alternative text is one of creative access, straddling the line between information and function. We are all artists, and while we try to minimize subjective language, we are working to provide a catalogue that creates an enjoyable experience for our non-visual audience as well as those who are better served by text!
We welcome feedback from our audiences. Please contact us at access@grunt.ca with any questions or feedback.
Catalogue:
Cover (front):
A blue-green catalogue cover with a single image at the top centre. Top text reads: grunt gallery, July 9th through August 13th, 2022. Bottom text reads: Michelle Campos Castillo, Terremoto. The image shows a digital illustration with a black background made of brush-like strokes. The central part of the illustration shows a person with long hair, tucked and sleeping in a hammock. Around them are white line drawings of fruiting trees. The front cover image was made by the artist Michele Campos Castillo, 2020.
The printed catalogue’s cover paper has subtle vertical grains and a smooth, supple feel to it.
Cover (back):
The back cover of the catalogue, which is a blue-green colour similar to oxidised copper, with text credits that appear throughout the document. These credits are listed on their respective pages below.
Inside Cover Spread:
The first open spread of the catalogue shows two family photos.
On the left page, Michelle and her sisters are pictured inside their family home, where an antique wall telephone, a TV (which is turned on) and tables with various objects can be seen. Michelle is facing away from the camera, walking across the frame, while her sisters Mila and Patty stand straight and still, smiling into the camera. They are all wearing colourful clothes, very much in line with the fashions of the 1980s.
On the right page, Mila sits in a turquoise outfit on a woven chair that is placed on top of a stool. Her hair is braided and she has a soft sheepish smile on her face, looking into the camera. Behind her, home decor like a golden baroque mirror and houseplants can be seen. Both images in the spread have the quality of bright flash that is common in family photos taken on film.
The front cover image credit text, listed on the back cover:: From left: Michele, Mila, Patty. Image by Pablo Campos.
The inside back cover image credit text, listed on the back cover:: From left: Michele, Mila, Patty. Image by Pablo Campos.
Page 1:
The page is all text. At the footer, the grunt gallery logo (the word grunt in lower case in white on a black brushstroke of black) sits above a line of gallery and exhibition funders. They are acknowledged in the text credits.
These interior pages are thinner than the cover and interior spread, but still feel thicker than photocopy paper.
grunt gallery
Terremoto
Michelle Campos Castillo
116 – 350 East 2nd Avenue
Vancouver, BC Canada
V5T 4R8
grunt.ca
Curator: Vanessa Kwan
Writers: Michelle Campos Castillo and Vanessa Kwan
Design: Victoria Lum
Copy Editor: Katrina Orlowski
Photography: Courtesy of Michelle Campos Castillo
Printed in Canada by Mitchell Press
Edition of 250
ISBN: 978-1-988708-20-1
All Rights Reserved
Publication © 2022 grunt gallery
Artwork © 2022 the artists
Text © 2022 the authors
All images courtesy of the artists
© Copyright grunt gallery, the writers and the artists. Content from this book cannot be reproduced without express permission from the publisher.
grunt gallery gratefully acknowledges support from The Province of British Columbia through the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, The Canada Council for the Arts, The British Columbia Arts Council, The City of Vancouver, the Audain Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Vancouver Foundation.
Page 2 and 3:
A full-two page image spread showing a panoramic illustration split across both pages. The illustration is digitally made and is mostly placed in a long black rectangle with irregular edges. There are white gaps within the black rectangle that show black line drawings of three people sleeping in different hammocks on the left page; a crumbled building, and a TV with dials and an antenna on the right page). Fruiting trees are drawn in coppery green and there is Spanish text written in blue, and English text written in yellow. The text across the illustrations on both pages reads, “That night we set up hammocks and mattresses outside to sleep. Everyone feared more quakes would come and we’d be crushed by our homes. I don’t remember if the piles of rubble and piles of bodies were something I lived through or just saw on TV. ”
Image credit text, listed on the back cover: Terremoto Wall 1, 2020. Image courtesy of the artist.
Page 4 :
A white rectangle with thin black borders at the top centre of a coppery blue-green page. The rectangle is filled with illustrative text, written in bold, black, trembling strokes that reads “Terremoto” twice in capital letters.
Image credit text, listed on the back cover: Terremoto, 2020. Image courtesy of the artist.
Page 5:
A white page with no images. Small, black, sans-serif intro text on the top corner reads: On October 10th 1986, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck El Savador’s capital city of San Salvador. and thin, large, serif title text reads: Vanessa Kwan, The earth moves and all the houses; Terremoto at grunt
Page 6:
A white page with no images. Vanessa Kwan’s writing is split into two thin columns on the page, which reads:
Out of reach of falling debris, a hammock swung.
Based on her own memories of living through the 1986 earthquake, Terremoto combines Michelle Campos Castillo’s graphic illustrations of childhood experiences—she was 3 years old at the time—with other forms of memory work: audio interviews, archival materials and video recordings of her mother, sisters and father. Herein you’ll find a companion to the exhibition—the transcribed and edited versions of the interviews both in English translation and the original Spanish. These interviews follow the logic of the exhibition as a whole; together they weave a communal interpretation of a remarkable event. What rises up is a sense of strangeness and curiosity, even amidst imminent danger, disruption and devastation. The complexities of experience, recounted by Castillo’s sisters through adult recollections from their smaller selves, recall fear but also excitement and a defining sense of warmth, of being held fast in community. The woven hammock—a Salvadoran staple— is a place of refuge for Castillo and her sisters, and becomes both a tool and a metaphor for survival, its intertwined supports mirroring a community and a family structure whose dimension Terremoto intimately explores.
Through the exhibition and this catalogue, Castillo’s gift to this narrative expands; Terremoto evades the sharp edged, front page narrative of natural disaster, and softens instead into a body of work that represents a moment in time with overlapping narratives of care. The artist plays the role of narrator, interviewer, translator and documentarian, and builds a sense of moving-with (vs through or over) the details of each story, and its expression. It is a practice that is resolute in its layered telling, both a story to be understood and a model for survival; if the ground shook, what would hold you?
Page 7:
A white page with a large section of text, placed in two columns. The left column of text is in a thin, serif typeface. The right column has large, illustrative bold text written shakily in a blue-green colour. The text reads “Location/Ubicación: San Salvador; Date/Fecha: 1986/10/10; Time/Hora: 11:49:26 AM; Magnitude/Magnitud: 7.5; Duration/Duración: 00:00:38.” Below the text, there is a very small illustration of the Salvador Del Mundo statue, toppled over.
Image credit text, listed on the back cover: Terremoto title wall, 2020. Image courtesy of the artist.
Page 8:
A coppery blue-green page filled with an archival image of the cover of the New York Times newspaper from October 11, 1986. An article entitled “Strong Quake Hits San Salvador: Scores Die as Buildings Collapse” at the top left of the page is highlighted in white, and the rest of the cover is tinted in a darker, almost dusty, grey.
Image credit text, listed on the back cover: Lemoyne, James (1986, October 11). Strong Quake Hits San Salvador; Scores Die as Building Collapse. New York Times. Section 1, page 1.
Page 9:
A white page with thin serif title text that reads:
Michelle Campos Castillo
Te acuerdas?
Page 10:
A text written by Michelle Campos Castillo is placed on a white page in two columns, using a thin sans-serif font. The text reads:
My dad asks me if I remember while I interview him through the phone. I’m in Edmonton in June 2020 and he is in La Libertad, El Salvador. As I listen to the recordings now, the voice feels appropriately far away. I spoke with my family members to try to finally piece together core memories of one event we lived through, one of many. Beyond the familial bond, we survived so much as a group—my two older sisters, Patty and Mila, my mom Cecilia, and my father Pablo. They are living witnesses to so much I’ve yet to share with anyone else.
Do I remember?
I was born in San Salvador, El Salvador, in 1983, several years into a civil war that would continue into the 1990s after my family and I had left the country. This was just another chapter in the nation’s tragic history and conflict that continues today. While violence and disaster served as a backdrop to my childhood, what remains with me today are the memories of warmth and safety. Community care shielded me as tragedies piled up, and I often think about how this could also help us now, especially as we experience pandemics and climate change disasters.
Terremoto is one day in our community. The drawings are mine but the memories belong to all the neighbours lining the streets waiting on everyone to get home safe.
Michelle Campos Castillo
Thank you grunt for bringing this prairie Salvi to the coast. Thank you to Michelle Schultz and Latitude 53 for believing in my story and the ways I chose to tell it. Thank you to Vivek Shraya for being my forever editor and cheerleader. Thank you Astrid for translating and translating some more. Y gracias familia: Mila, Patty, Pablo, Ceci.
Page 11:
On a white page, two landscape-oriented archival family photos with thin black borders are placed on a large blue-green rectangle.
The photo on top shows toddler Michelle Campos Castillo sitting on a brown leather couch between her older sisters Patty and Mila, with their mom, Ceci, sitting at the end of the frame next to them. The girls are all wearing light-coloured tops and shorts, and Ceci is wearing a turquoise and white two-piece outfit with a collared top. Michelle has a half-up hairdo with hair framing her face, and is crying with her mouth open slightly. Everyone around her has a look of slight concern, and maybe even annoyance. The room they are sitting in has large windows with strips of glass and ornate white metal bars.
The photo on the bottom shows Michelle standing with Patty and Mila, and two other children around their age. They are all wearing colourful clothes, mostly in pinks and blues, and standing outside on a sunny day, trees and the San Salvador Volcano visible in the horizon behind them. The children all look somewhat grumpy, and the taller kids are leaning on the wooden rail behind them.
Image credit text, listed on the back cover:
From left: Patty, Michelle, Mila, cecilia.
From left: Giovani & Emerson (family friends), Patty, Michelle, Mila.
Both images are by Pablo Campos.
Page 12:
On a white page, a portrait-oriented archival family photo with thin black borders is placed on a large blue-green rectangle. The photo shows, from left to right, Michelle’s mom Ceci, her sister Mila, a very young and small Michelle, and her sister Patty standing outdoors in front of a patch of grass and trees. The children are all wearing colourful skirts and dresses. Ceci is wearing blue jeans and a blue top, with a white leather bag under her arm. Paty and Mila are both looking into the camera with soft smiles, and Ceci and Michelle are both looking away from the camera, looking somewhat grumpy.
Image credit text, listed on the back cover:
From left: Cecilia, Mila, Michelle, Patty. Image by Pablo Campos.
Page 13:
A white page with thin serif title text that reads:
Michelle Campos Castillo
Conversations/Conversaciones
The title of this text is two words, one in English and one in Spanish.
Pages 14 through 29:
A white page with a large section of English text, placed in two columns. The title text is a small, bolded, serif font. The body text is in a thin sans-serif font, with the names of the people in the interview bolded. Also, within these pages are the same interviews in Spanish on the facing pages. This alternative text catalogue only contains English; however, the Spanish Interviews in the text can be accessed by contacting a grunt staff member. The text reads:
Interview #1 With Cecilia Castillo, Mother Of Michelle Campos Castillo
Recorded July 23, 2020 In Edmonton, Ab
Michelle: What does an earthquake feel like?
Mom: The earth moves and all of the houses.
Michelle: Do you remember the earthquake that happened in the ‘80s?
Mom: ‘86…October.
Michelle: Do you remember where you were and what you did that morning?
Mom: I made lunch and I was at the store with you.
Michelle: Only with me?
Mom: Yes and you were 2 years old.
Michelle: 3. And how old were you?
Mom: If you were 3, I was 29.
Michelle: Were you used to earthquakes?
Mom: Yes.
Michelle: What did you think in that moment? What did you say?
Mom: I said, “It’s an earthquake. [laughs] It’s an earthquake, let’s go outside.”
Michelle: Where was the rest of your family?
Mom: My other daughters were at school and their father was at work.
Michelle: How long did the earthquake last?
Mom: It’s just seconds, I don’t know how long.
Michelle: What did you do when it was over?
Mom: I went home and then to the bus stop to wait for my daughters.
Michelle: Did you have to wait for a long time?
Mom: No, the earthquake happened at 10 to 11 in the morning and they showed up at 2pm. But there were no buses running so they had to walk home. They studied far and had to walk home. Finally, they had jumped in a truck, they had taken this truck home. Maybe it was just Patty [sister],
Mila [sister]… I don’t remember if they were together. Mila was 9 years old and she studied closer.
Michelle: How did you decide to sleep outside that night?
Mom: Everyone (all the neighbours) decided to sleep outside.
Michelle: Was it only that night?
Mom: No, you spend several days sleeping outside because you get scared.
Michelle: What were you scared of?
Mom: You are scared there will be another earthquake and that the house will collapse on you because several people had their TVs fall, their cabinets… things like that.
Michelle: Do you remember if you slept outside?
Mom: You don’t really sleep but you take some chairs out and you don’t sleep because you’re talking with your neighbours then you might go sleep on the couch or on the floor with the door open.
Michelle: When did your husband get home?
Mom: He showed up before the girls. He came at like 1pm, before your sisters. Yes, he showed up before.
Michelle: Why didn’t he sleep outside that night?
Mom: He didn’t want to. He said he wasn’t scared.
Michelle: Do you really think he wasn’t scared?
Mom: I think he wasn’t because he slept in the bed.
Interview #2 With Milagro Campos, Older Sister Of Michelle Campos Castillo
Recorded July 23, 2020 In Edmonton, Ab
Michelle: Do you remember the date of the earthquake, what day it was?
Mila: October 10th of ’86, 10 to noon.
Michelle: Do you remember how old you were?
Mila: 9 years old.
Michelle: Do you remember that day? Your routine in the morning?
Mila: Yes, a bit. I think we went to school that day, we had school and we always went to the store after school.
Michelle: Where were you when the earthquake started?
Mila: We were at the store because I remember always going to the store behind our house. My mom would always go hang out with the neighbour [store owner]. I don’t know if we would buy food but I remember us watching TV. We were sitting. I remember you and me were sitting on the floor. We were sitting watching TV, watching cartoons because that’s what we always watched at that time after school.
Michelle: At the store?
Mila: Yes, at the store. I remember sitting there and then I heard the sound. The sound is what I remember the most.
Michelle: What’s the sound like?
Mila: Like something is falling but like it’s happening underground. The movement of things and I remember trying to stand up, trying to get up off the floor and my legs were shaking. That’s what I remember. Then I remember my mom and the lady from the store coming out and everyone else. And we all went outside and as soon as we stepped out, the mud houses were right across from us and I remember watching them fall. But they were made of mud, right? So I would just see like dust come up. It’s like dust, right? It looked like dust but it was the houses that had fallen and everyone was scared and standing outside their houses.
Michelle: Where was the rest of your family?
Mila: My dad and Patty weren’t home so I kept thinking about that when we went back home after everything; about how they would get home because we started hearing on the news that everything downtown had collapsed so I felt worried thinking about how or when they would get home. Because Patty was supposed to get home. I think she was at school in the afternoon so she had to be home at a certain time and she wasn’t. And neither was my dad, and we weren’t able to communicate with anyone. So I remember thinking about that a lot.
Michelle: Do you remember everything else that happened the rest of the day like what time Patty got home?
Mila: I don’t know who got home first, if it was my dad or Patty, but I remember Patty saying… I’m not sure if I’m remembering this right, but I remember that someone from school gave them a ride in a truck, is what she said. Something like that. That they took everyone home. Point is she got home because I’m not sure if buses were running. I’m not sure exactly how she got home.
Michelle: So how did the rest of the day feel for you? Were you scared? Did you feel aftershocks?
Mila: There were aftershocks and they were strong. Strong enough to make you think it’s gonna be another earthquake because you’re left with the fear every time there’s a tremble. And there are some really big ones after an earthquake so you’re always scared and don’t even want to go in your house because you’re scared that your house will crush you with the next tremble.
Michelle: So did you feel tired at night? Where did you guys sleep?
Mila: Everyone slept outside in the middle of the block. And with all the neighbours around because everyone there is very friendly. The kids were there too and you don’t feel too much sadness about what was happening because you’re there with everyone. And that’s where we grew up so we all knew each other well. That’s where I remember spending the night. I remember my dad slept inside because he wasn’t scared. He slept in bed but we slept outside with my mom.
Michelle: How does an earthquake feel?
Mila: How do I explain this? Like if you’re lying down somewhere and someone starts shaking you in bed or on a couch, and the sound is what is scary.
Michelle: So the sound is more traumatizing than what you feel?
Mila: Maybe and I also remember people saying that the road would crack open and that the earth would swallow people and it did happen in some places. Stuff like that really scared me because it’s not like you are outside and you’re safe. No, nothing will fall on you, but what if the ground cracks and opens? That can also happen in an earthquake, and well, it’s something that happens without a warning unlike a hurricane or something like that.
Michelle: Yes, where you have time to hide.
Mila: Yes, but in an earthquake you can’t do anything.
Interview #3 With Patty Campos, Older Sister Of Michelle Campos Castillo
Recorded July 23, 2020 In Edmonton, Ab
Michelle: Do you remember the exact date of the earthquake in the ‘80s?
Patty: Yes, October 10th, 1986, at 11:50 in the morning.
Michelle: How old were you?
Patty: I was 12 years old.
Michelle: What was your daily routine like?
Patty: Every day was the same, I would get up at 5 in the morning and I would leave at 6am and it was about an hour commute in 2 buses.
Michelle: What was your first thought when the earthquake started?
Patty: I was in class at that moment but there was no teacher. We were alone and it was almost time for us to leave so we were just trying to kill time. We were just talking to one another and all the sudden we heard rumbles underground but I didn’t know what it was. It was like thunder but underground. I remember looking up and everything was blurry and I wanted to open my eyes more because I thought I was dreaming because I started to hear screaming and the other girls crying, it was an all girls school. I didn’t know what to do until someone told me we had to get out of there because it was “shaking” but in that moment I didn’t know what that was. You wanted to get up and you couldn’t, you would fall. We all wanted to go out the door but there were girls on the floor and I would look down and I didn’t want to step on anyone but other girls did. I would see a hand and then a foot stepping on it. I saw someone step on another girl’s legs and I would just stand there and others would push me to keep moving but I didn’t want to step on anyone because everyone was running, screaming and crying.
Michelle: Does the moment feel long?
Patty: Long because the shaking stops and you don’t know that it has stopped because you feel like everything is still moving and after the earthquake there were a lot of aftershocks so every time something moves you think it’s going to be another earthquake and that goes on for many days after the earthquake…
Michelle: How did you get home?
Patty: How did I get out of school? I don’t remember. My memory starts when I was at the second bus stop, the bus stop where I would catch my second bus to get home. How did we get there? I think walking which took us maybe 2 hours to get there because I don’t remember how we got there. There were supposedly three of us together but I only remember one girl with me.
Michelle: So you get on the second bus and you get home?
Patty: We were waiting for the second bus after walking for about 2 hours and people were saying there were no buses. We didn’t know what to do so we kept walking. I’m not sure how much longer until we got to a place called Reloj de Flores which is at the entrance of Bolivar del Ejercito which was the route to get home but it was also the longest path so I didn’t think we would get home until the next day by foot because we had already walked a lot! But I asked my friend and she made me remember something I had forgot because I kept thinking, “How did I get home?” I remember getting on a microbus in the Reloj de Flores because a bus driver asked, “Girls, where are you going?” Because I don’t know how we looked, if we looked scared or something because we were just little girls you know. So the bus stopped in the middle of the road and waved us over to get on and we were scared but we also wanted to go home. So the bus driver asked us where we were headed and we said “Valle Nuevo” and the bus driver said he was going to “Santa Lucia” which was the neighbourhood next to mine. From Santa Lucia to Valle Nuevo it was about 15-20 mins,
walking. I think we had already walked about 4 hours. We got to Santa Lucia and we saw kids from our neighbourhood. I just know I felt relief when I saw someone I knew, you know? And again I don’t know how we looked but they started bugging us and saying good thing we were back and we kept walking. My mom was going crazy because it was already 4 or 5pm and I wasn’t home yet and she didn’t know where I was or what had happened and I think all you heard on the news was “this collapsed, this person died, this many dead” so when I got there I remember, I think it was in the entrance and someone said “Niña Ceci! Patty’s here” so I think her heart returned to her chest because Mila and Michelle were already with her.
Michelle: So how was the rest of the day?
Patty: I remember that we had no power because we were also in the middle of a war so we never had power so that night, aside from not having power… feeling scared, sleeping outside in the street because people would say a stronger earthquake was coming and that our houses would collapse or that they could sink into the ground and that more people would die so we slept outside that night.
Michelle: Were you able to sleep?
Patty: I don’t remember. I think from the exhaustion and everything but with everyone around, all the families outside, it was like a party; talking, drinking coffee with pastries and the other kids telling stories and jokes. It was fun!
Interview #4 With Pablo Campos, Father Of Michelle Campos Castillo.
Recorded July 23, 2020 – In A Call Between Edmonton And El Salvador
Michelle: Do you remember the exact date of the earthquake?
Pablo: It was on October 10th of ’86 at noon, at about 12:10pm I think.
Michelle: Do you remember where you were?
Pablo: In Santa Tecla [suburb of San Salvador]. I was teaching at a school there so I was in the office when the earthquake started.
Michelle: Was it a regular day? Anything different?
Pablo: No, everything was the same. It was 12pm so I was talking to a driver, we called him ‘Brother.’ So I was just making conversation and I said, “Hey Brother, like every human being, do you have a fear of anything? Or anyone? Do you have a phobia? Or what are you scared of?” And he said, “You know what, I’m scared of earthquakes.” It was a coincidence right? I said, “Hey there’s an earthquake.” He said, “Don’t joke about that, I told you that’s my biggest fear.” I said, “No, Brother, seriously it’s an earthquake.” So in the office there were some water bottles and you could see the water moving so I said, “Look at the bottle of water” and it was moving, and so I said, “look at the water” and when he saw, we were on the second floor, he ran out of there so fast. And where we were there was a soccer field down there, he went running down those stairs and everyone went crazy there, everyone going down the stairs. But when we all go down there to the first floor, he was already in the middle of the field. You know how soccer fields are really big? And he was in the middle. That’s why I remember all of that.
So that day at that time our boss said, “Everything is suspended, we’re not working”and that some vehicles would come pick us up and take us home. We drove through downtown and since the earthquake had just hit, that building Ruben Dario, right across from the Antel building, it was about 5 floors and the top floor was at the ground floor level. The whole thing sunk and on the other side of the Palacio Nacional,by the pharmacy, there were dead bodies. We saw about 15 bodies on the sidewalk covered up with blankets. That was really hard to see because I remember all of that very well. That is still very present for me because there were lots of events. Do you remember? Actually you might not remember that your mom, she went to school withDago’s sister, because his sister had a salon. So she had finished school and I don’t know how long she was there but she started working in that building, Ruben Dario.The salon was in the basement of that building but then she didn’t want to go that day. I think it was the day before that she told me she wasn’t going to work there anymore because the lady wouldn’t let her do the job she wanted to do, which was doing hair. She would just have her like an assistant, having her run errands for the lady or getting her food. Something like that is what she had told me and I told her not to go anymore, if that’s what she was using her for, to not go. That day that she chose not to go, that was the day of the earthquake. Anyone who was there in that basement where the salon was, all those people died because the building sank. It took days for them to pull bodies out of there. They brought in a rescue team and rescue dogs from Mexico and they would bring out the bodies. That was horrible. Several buildings collapsed. That was in ’86. You remember that right?
Michelle: Do you remember what time you got home?
Pablo: Yes, I remember. Like I said we got dropped off right? We left at approximately 1:00-1:30 so I got home around 2:30-3:00pm. Since there are many stops on the way I got home around 3:00pm.
Michelle: And do you remember where you slept that night?
Pablo: Yes, in the house.
Michelle: In the house? You didn’t stay outside with the neighbours?
Pablo: No, since things had calmed down we were all inside because in spite of everything, I felt that our house was pretty safe because it didn’t even crack, they held out. It feels like another strong earthquake could come but no, there were just aftershocks. I don’t think we slept outside because there wasn’t much space for me to stay so I think we slept inside.
Michelle: So how old were you when this happened in ’86?
Pablo: ’86, 1986…
Michelle: Like 30? If mom was 29? Like 39 years old?
Pablo: In ’86, yes…
Michelle: So would you say you’re used to earthquakes? You’re not scared of them?
Pablo: You know, I’m not scared of them. I’m not scared of earthquakes. Honestly I talked to my friend about that and he said, “ I’m not scared of anything” and I said, “you’re not normal.” He said, “Why?” I said, “Everyone is scared of something.” For example: snakes. Yolanda [wife] is scared of snakes and mice. Today we were out on the patio and she saw a snake, it wasn’t big, maybe three inches long and she yelled, “Ahh kill the snake!” but I didn’t and she got so mad at me because she wanted me to kill it. But I’m scared of heights…
Michelle: Oh?
Pablo: But you know, I’m not scared of flying because I’ve been on a plane many times and a small plane, it doesn’t feel good to be on a small plane. But being in a tall building and looking down feels… I get chills. That’s it: heights. But I have climbed mango trees and I don’t feel anything, but if it’s a very big height, yes.
Page 30:
A white page with a small, sans-serif font at the bottom right corner of the page, which reads: Newspaper images, La Prensa Grafica, 1986. From the artist’s collection.
Page 31:
A white page with a large coppery-blue rectangle at its centre. Within this larger coloured rectangle, there are eight black and white archival images from the aftermath of the 1986 earthquake in San Salvador. The images are all different sizes and include both portrait and landscape-oriented photos. In the photos, there are crumbled buildings and collapsed roads, even with cars on them. There are people digging through the rubble; rescuers descending with headlamps; people dragging their belongings and furniture onto the street, and civilians working together to remove people and objects from sites of destruction.
Page 32 and 33:
A full-two page image spread showing a panoramic illustration split across both pages. The illustration is digitally made and is mostly placed in a long black rectangle with irregular edges. There are white gaps within the black rectangle that show black line drawings of a young girl, representing Michelle, eating, sitting, and sleeping in a hammock. Coppery-green line drawings on the solid black area show an adult smiling warmly and offering some food to the child, as well as adults chatting in a circle, a tall yucca tree with long and pointed leaves, as well as a couple of smaller fruiting trees. English text across the top of the illustration, written in bright yellow, reads “I wasn’t scared that night. The chatter of my neighbours was everything I needed to feel safe. In a culture of matriarchs, there was always someone to care for me, watch me, feed me.” At the bottom of the image, this text is repeated in Spanish, drawn in a light-coloured blue.
Image credit text, listed on the back cover: Terremoto Wall 1, 2020. Image courtesy of the artist.
Page 34:
A white page with a short biography of the artist. Her name is bolded in black, with text in thin sans-serif font that reads: Michelle Campos Castillo is a Salvadoran visual artist living in Edmonton. She has been the recipient of several public art commissions from the City of Edmonton, including Platanos, a set of three sculptures on permanent display at Belvedere Transit Centre, and is currently producing artwork for the LRT Valley Line in the west end of the city. A frequent collaborator with artist Vivek Shraya, she has provided art direction and photography for Vivek’s Trisha photo series, graphic design for her Lambda Literary Award-nominated book, What I Love About Being QUEER, and VS Books, the artist’s imprint with Arsenal Pulp Press.
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A white page intentionally left blank, to mark the end of the publication and allow a moment of reflection.
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A white page intentionally left blank, to mark the end of the publication and allow a moment of reflection.
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