Juliana Soto | Designer and illustrator

Barcelona es una finca

2023-2024

I enjoy explaining things that don't make much sense. For instance, missing taking a nap in a hammock on a farmhouse porch by the Magdalena River, back in Colombia.

I have to explain it because it's not just an average nap or an average hammock. I'm talking about missing lying down for the zillionth nap on a piece of fabric that's probably older than me, in a farmhouse named Barcelona. I'm talking about being here -in Barcelona- and missing a piece of land whimsically named after some colonial fantasy.

And since I can't get hold of that hammock (the one with a thousand naps), I have to explain why I've made my own with pieces of sheets, comforters, pajamas, and scarves where let's say, a thousand naps have taken place.

Barcelona es una finca, at El pedacito de pasto que tenemos frente a nuestra casa (2024), in Barcelona.

Barcelona es una finca (detail), at El pedacito de pasto que tenemos frente a nuestra casa (2024), in Barcelona.

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Barcelona es una finca (detail), at El pedacito de pasto que tenemos frente a nuestra casa (2024), in Barcelona.

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Barcelona es una finca (detail), at El pedacito de pasto que tenemos frente a nuestra casa (2024), in Barcelona.

I'm going to tell you a secret.

Barcelona is a farmhouse.

Not far from a river that finds its way to the Magdalena, there used to be this big, ancient farm. The house was as old as my grandpa. It could well have been called La Escondida or El Agrado, or Prague or Naples, but it was called Barcelona.

I haven't set foot there in ages, so it's more of a distant memory. The memory is vague, but the feel of it on my skin – the taste on my lips, the earth under my nails – is clear.

I wish I could explain what it feels like, to hold a memory like the air within you, like walking on pebbles with sore feet and then dipping them into a river's cool embrace. How do I make you understand the slow heartbeat after a meal of beans or lying in the sun on a rock or in the shade in a hammock on a porch where the wind barely blows? Can you grasp the washed-out hue of the fabric, the rough yet timeless texture, or the one-of-a-kind scent of everyone's sweat who ever took a nap there?

I carry this secret with me as I stroll along the Moll de la Fusta on a hot night (I like holding onto secrets because I feel they shine in me when only I know them, but now you shine too). In our secret, it's always night, and it's always summer.

I could, roughly, estimate the distance between the house and the San Bartolomé shore. Or I could close my eyes and sketch the outline of the Colombian savannah cradling the river's bends. But the thing is I can't.

Just as I can't buy a one-way ticket to Barcelona because you can't go to a place that doesn't exist.

You can't point out on the map a place that only exists in memory.

Barcelona es una finca (details), at El pedacito de pasto que tenemos frente a nuestra casa (2024), in Barcelona.

Barcelona es una finca (detail), at El pedacito de pasto que tenemos frente a nuestra casa (2024), in Barcelona.

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