Six Days
Hormones, memory, and a question suspended in the air.
I moved to Buenos Aires in 2012, just a few blocks from where, for decades, a factory had produced hormones for female contraceptives. That same year, the plant shut down. Schering S.A. relocated its production to Germany, leaving behind an immense building, frozen in time: still and empty. In the neighbourhood, people said everything was contaminated. That getting too close was dangerous. That going inside was madness. Technically, completely removing the traces of synthetic substances was almost impossible. People spoke of compounds clinging to the walls, to the dust, to the very air. Lingering hormones, invisible residues, suspended memory.
For years, like so many other women, I took those same hormones. I swallowed them almost without thinking. Because it is what is expected of us, to carry the burden of control. Because, although we are fertile only six days a month, we are held responsible for birth control all 365 days of the year.
One afternoon, I went out with my camera. I covered the lens with a thin film of gel and entered, trying to capture the intangible. My body knew those substances. Crossing that threshold was not only a physical risk, but also an intimate gesture, a confrontation with something that had once inhabited me , inhabited us, and that still floated in that suspended atmosphere.
