Abbecedario del linguaggio carcerario (Prison lenguage alphabet)

28 drawings, graffite on paper 35x27 cm

The panels represent the letters of the Spanish alphabet and the respective movements that are made with the hands to indicate each letter. This language was used by political prisoners once learned by ordinary prisoners and was used to communicate between various cells or between halls.

In general, arranging to "talk with your hands" was quite difficult. The light niches, the windows, were very high....

"From the cells, climbing on top of the bunks, we would stick one hand between the window bars making sure there was a receiver on the other side. Doing it from the wards was more complicated: the windows were too high or the bunks too low. The fact of the matter is that in order to make a hand stick out, in addition to climbing onto the bunk beds we had to add a chair or other supports to "be at the right height." Meanwhile, one of us, positioned behind the entrance gate, kept an eye on the situation by means of a mirror extended beyond the bars."(Memory of Darkness, Collective work of 112 Argentine political prisoners 1974-1983. Sperling and Kupfer)