While on press for her second book, Águas de Ouro, Sandra Cattaneo Adorno noticed the brightly colored metal plates used to make test proofs. The plates, called “scarti” (Italian for “scraps”), showed her photographs as monochromes in shocking pink, bright yellow, royal blue, and black, evoking the spirit of Andy Warhol. A jolt of recognition coursed through her veins as Cattaneo Adorno realized the curious way in which photography can be used to preserve — and rearrange — fragments of time.

When the pandemic brought the world to a standstill in March 2020, Cattaneo Adorno noticed time began moving in strange ways, stretching endlessly into some unknown beyond but, if not preserved, disappearing from memory as though it never occurred. She began to feel as though she were accumulating “scraps” of time layering upon itself. Determined to give this experience form, Cattaneo Adorno began traveling through the inner space of her imagination. Delving through her archive, she began collaging otherwise unrelated images to create a series of new work that blurs the boundaries of reality and illusion as a metaphor for the mind.