I’ve Never Been There - Part 1

I’ve Never Been There is the first part of Difference 3, the final chapter in a three-year project exploring displacement and the process of connecting with new environments. This work begins with eight texts written by people from different countries, each describing a personal space they know intimately but that I have never visited. These texts form the foundation for a two-part visual exploration: first, an inquiry into how we might expand our perceptual possibilities and begin to imagine spaces we've never seen (Part 1); and second, a reflection on how imagination, empathy, and collaboration can help us perceive what lies beyond our immediate reach — places, experiences, and perspectives that are not our own (Part 2).

Following this premise, Part 1 unfolds through a series of visual experiments. Based on each written description, I generated AI images representing these spaces. I then photographed myself, cut out my figure, and physically inserted it into the printed AI landscapes, creating a new photograph that captures the act of entering an imagined, unfamiliar place. Titles and space descriptions are presented bilingually (English and Spanish), underscoring the project’s commitment to cross-cultural understanding.

This selection represents a small sample of the full project.

Acknowledgements

This project, like all the work I carried out during the third and final year of my project Difference, depended on the generous, voluntary collaboration of others. I am deeply grateful to the friends who described spaces close to them—familiar places I had never seen myself: Gina Beltrán (Canada), Manuel Campirano (Canada), Paul Foulkes-Arellano (England), Gabriel Figueroa (Mexico), Jenny Hui (China), Tui Matira Ranapiri-Ransfield (New Zealand), Babitha Shanavas (Australia), and Isabel Vázquez (Argentina).
This collaboration—offered freely and across distances—made this work possible.