Argentina: A Return to Chacarita Cemetery

Buenos Aires: Lost Focus, Found Cemeteries

I returned to Buenos Aires this April after four years away. I brought a heavy camera bag, good intentions, and a vague plan to find work. I also got lucky with the light—every time I took out the DSLR, the weather seemed to show up for me.

Despite packing all that gear, I didn’t shoot as much as I intended. I had a few interviews with wedding planners, hoping to line up projects, but nothing stuck. I also had more social distractions than expected (yes, there was a girl). That probably undid the focus I’d hoped for.

Still, I’m thinking about what I could do if I return. I lived here for nearly five years, and I’m always looking for an excuse to come back.

One place I did photograph was Chacarita Cemetery.

Everyone goes on about Recoleta—it’s neat, photogenic, and full of cats. But Chacarita is something else entirely. It’s enormous, and architecturally it spans everything from bourgeois tombs to austere wall burials and a sprawling underground complex that feels part nuclear bunker, part Brutalist housing project.

There’s a real visual contrast: the old mausoleums crumble with a certain poetry, while the modern concrete structures just rot. The decay isn’t romantic—it’s cheap and bleak. You can almost see the ghost of a political agenda crumbling alongside it.

I couldn’t help thinking about the arrogance behind these structures. Built by juntas and politicians to assert power, not honour the dead, they now stand cracked and abandoned—a concrete monument not to memory, but to ego.