Ezequiel Díaz Ortíz:
Editing Memory
It’s useful to distinguish between editing, editorial design and photography. Editing concerns the content, while editorial design concerns the form - the aesthetic and functional decisions that shape a book. Photography taught me how to look attentively, which is something both disciplines require.
I started very young, when digital photography didn't exist yet. Analogue photography put me in a position of having to observe and to pause in order to choose the light and to subject. Editorial work has something of that too: selecting, choosing, thinking, organising and developing an agile eye through practice. In my case, the two disciplines are closely intertwined.
Do you understand them as a whole?
Yes. Over time, within the trajectory of a practice, they become one.
What does editing mean to you? Is it selecting, ordering, interpreting or constructing a new way of reading?
It is interesting to break it down, but editing is all of those things. To edit, you have to know how to interpret, and to interpret, you have to understand the subject you are dealing with. Having edited many books, I believe that if you don't study and learn about what you are going to edit, interpretation becomes very difficult.
Interpretation comes first, much as it does in music, or when an actor understands a role. It means interpreting something in depth. Then come the other parts: putting that information in a specific order, thinking about how you are going to present it, structuring the book with an editorial script, and only afterwards do I work on its form.
You also asked me about creating a new way of reading. In every project there is an attempt to work with the concept. On occasions we have made a book similar to one that already exists, or republished a book that had been previously published, seeking to offer a new perspective. Our aim is to bring a new point of view while preserving the essence. It is an almost permanent process.
The concept of the book has to remain the same, but the perspective - in terms of design and of how a book is presented - must evolve while also remaining timeless. That is another challenge. We don't want it to follow trends, we wish for design and its interpretation to last over time.
Was that what happened when you made both of the Kavanagh books?
That's a good question. Yes, the subject was the same. The first book was Kavanagh Buenos Aires, which focused on the building through its cultural and architectural context. It was a re-examination, a monograph on the building.
Years later, Marcelo Nougués approached us about making another book. He suggested focusing on Corina Kavanagh, who commissioned the building and drove the project forward in the 1930’s. I agreed completely because the new proposal gave us the opportunity to approach the same subject from a different perspective. The good thing is that both books are highly sought after and many people own them. As editors, that is an enormous achievement.
Was it a challenge to give each book its own character and language when, at first glance, someone might understand them as being about the same thing?
Yes, absolutely. We had to respect the essence of the building, and of what we had previously explored photographically with Emma. We had already done that work for the first book: capturing its colour, tone and language, and then taking those conceptual elements into the second book while doing something else.
The books look different, but their essence is the same. I think that was the achievement of those two editions, produced within a very short period of one another.
When you gain access to archives, as you did with these two books, what happens to you as an editor?
Archives reveal truths. They are a fascinating material from which to construct a story. As an editor, when envelopes arrive containing negatives - some never seen before, many of them unpublished - it is an incredibly rewarding discovery, particularly in our work with books concerning heritage. That act of rescuing is an opportunity to give value to something that once existed, while looking towards the future.
How do you work with historical documents without fixing them in the past?
As I said in the previous question, the historical document is immensely relevant because it displays a history. Sometimes, for example, you find a letter in which something is described, and later you find a photograph that confirms it. It is a form of corroboration, and something we editors consider extremely valuable.
At a publishing house, we have a friend we often work with, Ernesto Montequin who rescued a phrase by Borges that says: “We have the past ahead of us.” At Arkheion and Díaz Ortiz Ediciones, we have adopted this phrase as a value and as a goal for our publications. To rescue an archive is to give it value. It is a bastion of the present, that holds a view towards the future. Not necessarily a nostalgic or melancholic view. It can be an inspiring way of looking at what has happened.
When you look at an image, can you recognise that it has a value that might endure, become part of an archive and eventually turn into the starting point for a book? Does that happen to you?
Yes, it does. It has to do with the constant exercise of looking. Part of it is intuitive. There is also a documentary and an aesthetic assessment in terms of whether that photograph belongs in the book. But yes, it’s a continuous process of selection and evaluation. Experience helps you make a decision. What we editors do is choose, select and publish.
In that act of choosing, and in constantly selecting, do you gradually refine your eye, passing all those images through a filter that becomes increasingly narrow as you become more demanding?
That has happened to us many times. There are very rich archives where the possibilities are endless, but books cannot have eight hundred pages. We have had books reach five hundred and thirty pages at the end of the editing process, when ideally they should not exceed three hundred. There is a more demanding and sharper eye that you have to respond to. It is a job -in the best of cases- and it is difficult to do.
What role do you imagine books and archives playing in the face of the accelerated circulation of images? What do you think will happen?
When I am asked these questions, I like to go back to the origins of the book. Carl Sagan, the astronomer and science communicator, described it as one of humanity's greatest inventions: writing and the book. Whoever invented the book, many centuries ago, was able to send us a message that travelled through time with remarkable clarity. Sagan said this fifty years ago, and it remains true. I believe the book will continue to exist. It is still relevant today, and it will remain so for many years to come.
There is evidence of this. The more social media and artificial intelligence grow, the more people respond to book fairs; new bookshops appear, it is increasingly possible to access imported books in Buenos Aires, books continue to arrive, and we continue to choose them. Humanity continues to choose them. I think it is a very positive response to everything else: technology and other forms of communication. The archive continues to express itself, inform and inhabit homes, tables and universities, opening up conversations at presentations and debates. So I believe the book has an absolutely guaranteed future.
What did your practice find in the Kavanagh that gave rise to the proposal developed for this project?
The Kavanagh Project came to me in two different capacities, as we mentioned earlier. On the one hand, as a book editor and designer, and on the other, as a photographer.
In the case of Kavanagh Buenos Aires, my photographic work involved working with Emma Livingston, whom Guillermo and I invited to collaborate on the first book. Throughout that process with Emma, I approached the building with an editor's eye. On occasions I would take photographs in order to discuss certain viewpoints that interested me with her. Emma, of course, has her own perspective, and she expressed it in the book, but there was a dialogue between the two of us.
At last year's exhibition, in 2025, Belén García Pinto brought back some of the photographs I had made through that dialogue with Emma and included them in the exhibition. I would describe it as looking back at a photographic process in order to understand how, when interpreting the building through the design and editing of a book, one first has to study the building itself. I approached it in two ways. I saw the exterior skin -the concrete, the grey, the coldness of the service façade- and then the warmth of the interior. It was about moving from one side to the other, looking at what existed outside and what existed within, in that interior so rich in tonalities. The exterior was equally fascinating, particularly the way light changes the façade depending on whether the sky is overcast or the sun is shining. All of that fascinated me, and it became a very meticulous process of exploration.
I've often found myself with Emma running my hand over the skin of the building, almost as a way of recognising its textures so that we could later translate them into photographs. We conducted a very exhaustive study, but it was also very enjoyable. Rigor does not have to be an act of sacrifice; it can be an act of pleasure and understanding. These photographs are the result of that. Every corner, space, and the essence of the building are present in them.
When you walk through the building, there are spaces that invite you to appreciate them in silence. There is something there, an aura, that those of us who have walked through this building can recognise.
Cabinet Óseo spoke specifically about immortalising certain elements of nature through a technique such as casting. As a photographer, what do you see when it comes to immortalising particular things or perspectives -in this case, the Kavanagh? What did you find, as both editor and photographer, that made you raise the bar, or become much more sophisticated in the way you approached documenting the building?
It begins with a recognisable work of architecture, an icon of Buenos Aires, created at a particular moment in the city's history, responding to a completely different architectural vision from what had been built up to that point. It is a work of architecture that you simply cannot help admiring, much like the National Library. Buildings that become icons precisely because they are different. I think it is impossible not to have both a total and a fragmented view of this building, with these terraces... We can experience it in parts, and each part says something about the whole. We also have to think about the legacy of Cora Kavanagh, the woman who decided to undertake this project. Just as Victoria Ocampo's legacy in her time was Sur and the cultural activity we all know, Cora's legacy, as her contemporary, was this building. Those are the perspectives that inspired me.
Do you think Sara Facio inspired you or helped you see the world differently?
Yes, her and other photographers I've been lucky enough to know. Sara's case was that of a great friendship, like the one I hold now with Facundo de Zuviría. They are photographers who have made observation their daily practice. They have practised looking and photographing as both an ordinary and passionate activity. Through that practice, they have developed a distinctive way of seeing. There are very few photographers whose character and personality you can recognise immediately. You can say: this photograph is Sara’s, this is Saderman’s, this is Zuviría’s, this is Avedon’s, this is Meyerowitz’s, and so on. What I value most in these photographers is that they have achieved that sense of identity. In Sara's case, particularly, I've had conversations with her about how she worked. Her photographs are both anecdotal and profound. An encounter with Cortázar in Paris turns into the emblematic photograph we all know. Those conversations have allowed me to construct my own history.
My work is made up of all those stories, and of that sense of identity that I am still searching for.
12/08/2026
15:30 HRS
Photo credits:
Emma Livingston
Ezequiel Díaz Ortiz is an art-book editor, designer and photographer. Through his work editing books, he had the opportunity to work for several years alongside renowned photographers such as Facundo de Zuviría and Sara Facio, among others, from whom he learned to understand photography in all its many dimensions and forms.
Editing photography books is a process that demands a deepening of one’s visual perspective and a refined sense of selection and composition. These unique and enriching experiences led Ezequiel back to his own photographic practice—a vocation that emerged early in his life and which he has pursued since a young age.
Ezequiel’s photographs—produced today in both analogue and digital formats—are the result of his observation of the city, its character and the particular aesthetic of its corners, whether empty or inhabited. Díaz Ortiz believes that nothing is insignificant if one takes the time to observe. The simplest details and smallest gestures can express emotion and beauty. As an editor, he has produced highly regarded books both in Argentina and internationally. Kavanagh Buenos Aires and Cora Kavanagh y su edificio have inspired this exhibition.