ANTONIETA
:: art project
2014-2015
_objects
This project began among the gears of watches, pearlized boxes, dolls, and kitchen appliances at Els Encants, Barcelona’s famed flea market, where I use to wander on Sundays.
It was there, unexpectedly, that I discovered eleven letters written by a certain B. Serrat—sent to his beloved more than ninety years ago. I began to read them, caught between curiosity, quiet excitement, and the strange intimacy of intruding upon a world not my own. In that moment, two strangers became less unknown to me, and I felt compelled to trace the fragments of their love story, a romance stretched across more than six hundred kilometers.
B. Serrat had written to a woman named Antònia Valldeperas, living on Rocafort Street in Barcelona, from the cities where he performed military service in 1927. My fascination deepened when I realized that the letters were addressed to someone on the very street where I was living at the time.
I began to investigate her life. Antònia Valldeperas Torras appeared in a municipal census record: born in 1904, she was already living at Calle Rocafort 119 with her sister Mercedes, just two years her senior.
But what had become of their love? Did they reunite after his return? I clung to the few clues the letters offered: names, addresses, numbers… breadcrumbs across time.
I walked down Rocafort Street until I reached number 119. Who lived there now, in the house where she had spent so many years? I rang the doorbell, but no one answered. Another door, another bell—finally, a kind woman invited me in to talk. As I climbed the stairs, I imagined Antònia decades ago, carrying her shopping bag, descending to meet friends, the rhythm of ordinary life unfolding like a quiet film.
P., the woman who welcomed me, knew nothing of Antònia or her lover. Only a Romanian couple lived there now.
Then, another breakthrough: the obituaries in La Vanguardia, July 28, 1983. Antònia’s name appeared—she had died at 79, widow of Baldomer Serrat.
Baldomer Serrat. I smiled, the weight of a century lifting in that moment. The same B. Serrat who had penned the letterst. They married, had a son and grandchildren. The obituary wrote that she had been laid to rest at the Cemetery of Les Corts, her funeral at 3:45 pm on that July afternoon.
Finding her grave was like reading the final page of a book I had held in my hands for hours. Amid 28,583 graves, in a quiet, still space of 34,417 m², I finally found her: Valldeperas.
The grave was dusty, pale plastic flowers bowed beside the stoic face of an angel. No one had tended it in years. I imagined Mercedes resting nearby. My search ended there, with no further traces. Questions remained: I longed to meet her son or grandchildren, to hear the echoes of the lives behind the letters.
Yet the question haunted me: why had these letters ended up in a flea market? Had they lost all meaning for the family who once cherished them? Or had time simply stripped them of their value? Perhaps they had only gathered dust in some forgotten box.
This discovery became the beginning of my wandering pursuit of other stories and lost memories. Like a leopard hunting, my path was erratic, guided by curiosity and instinct, following traces invisible to most.
"Only gregarious animals go in a straight line." — Oskar Alegria