THE RODELU JAIL is a piece of work which I developed in 2003 in the ex-jail Miguelete.

The topic of jails was not strange to me as I had worked for several years (until 2003) in the Asesoria Juridica de la Direccion de Carceles (the legal consultancy office for national prison management), and was up to date with different aspects of the reality of the prison system.

In the beginning I came up with the idea of carrying out an internal documentation of Uruguayan prisons; however, for differing reasons, I was unable to do so.

At the end of 2002 the authorities of the national prison management requested that I digitally restore some unpublished photographs of the Miguelete jail (taken long before its abandonment) which had been preserved in an old album. These historical photographs, of such a vastly changed reality, came to form part of an exhibition which celebrated the national prison management office's yearly anniversary and which also included various handmade arts and crafts which had been created by inmates. The exhibition was also attended and supported by various highly ranked policemen and politicians intent on showing a particular image of prison reality.

After this time, I began developing a personal project with the aim of documenting, photographically, the current situation of the abandoned Miguelete jail, focusing on the deterioration of this state institution. This project is therefore, primarily, an attempt to document, as closely as possible (given certain limitations), what was until recently a prominent Uruguayan jail, and the reality of this jail today.

Secondly, this project documents the growing urban deterioration which has occurred in Montevideo in the last several decades, showing the deterioration caused by the passing of time, the waiting, along with the remains of those who once lived in this jail, and the words and thoughts which still inhabit these forsaken spaces.

And finally, this project presents, beyond a literal anecdote, a metaphor of my vision of a country, Uruguay, which has been abandoned or, in the best of cases, whose inhabitants have managed to escape.

My thanks go to the administrative management of the Ministry of Education and Culture, who permited my access to the Miguelete prison. I also thank all those who, in one form or another, collaborated in the realisation of this piece of work.