Altares de camino

"The altars (...) are monuments that speak of tragedy, of misfortunes, of families in condolences, of the transient of our existence. They also speak of religious faith: but much more ephemeral and of that human need, manifested in every society, to establish a long-lasting and concrete meaning to death." With this message, artist Mario Silva introduces "Altars of Road", a photographic exhibition. Silva traveled the 2,400 km. of the Pan-American Highway and along the Peru coast, documenting with close to 800 photographs the peculiar architecture dedicated to the memory of the dead, portraying various forms of altars and places and adding that "the fact that they are erect in the precise place of their death, and not in a cemetery was born of the conviction that there is an instant metaphysical transformation, a shift from material to spiritual, at the time of death"