Broken Promises

I created this photograph while walking through La Recoleta in Buenos Aires.

At first glance, it appeared to be nothing more than a damaged political sign left on the ground after an earlier visit by Hugo Chávez.

What drew me closer was not the political figure itself, but the way the sign had begun to fall apart.

Standing there, I realized I was no longer looking at political advertising.

I was looking at a metaphor.

The torn image suggested promises that had once been presented as whole, certain, and permanent—but which time had reduced to fragments.

Political signs are created to persuade.

Time transforms them into historical artifacts.

Torn, weathered, and abandoned beneath passing footsteps, Broken Promises invites viewers to consider how public ideals evolve once speeches end and history continues.

The photograph neither endorses nor condemns the figure represented. Instead, it reflects on the fragile relationship between hope, certainty, memory, and the passage of time.

This photograph was made while walking through the Recoleta district of Buenos Aires.

A political sign remaining from an earlier visit by Hugo Chávez had been left on the pavement. Weather, footsteps, and time had already begun tearing it apart.

What remained no longer resembled a unified public message.

It resembled history itself.

Looking at the damaged sign, I was reminded that every generation inherits promises made by those who came before it.

Some endure.

Others slowly fragment until only traces remain.

The photograph became less about politics than about the impermanence of certainty.

Every society leaves behind symbols.

Time decides which become monuments...

and which become fragments.

Torn paper reminds us that ideas, like photographs, continue changing long after they are created.

Sometimes history survives not through what was carefully preserved...

but through what was left behind.

Preserved as the ninth accessioned photograph in the Francisco Colón Studio Photography Wing, Broken Promises expands the collection's exploration of memory into the public sphere.

By transforming a discarded political artifact into a broader reflection on history and impermanence, the work demonstrates how ordinary urban details can acquire enduring symbolic meaning.