LSYTSDA / Lo siento, yo tampoco soy de aquí (spanish: I’m Sorry, I’m Not from Here Either) is a documentary project that explores otherness, migration, and uprootedness. Its title, inspired by the Catalan fanzine El Naufraguito, alludes to the sometimes comic, sometimes uncomfortable feeling of not belonging. The project collects first-person testimonies from migrants, gradually building a living catalogue of voices and experiences. It is therefore an essentially collective work: its meaning and depth emerge through the contributions of others.
The coin, both as metaphor and as material support, becomes an eloquent symbol of inequality. It refers to ethnic penalization: the systemic imbalance that pushes most economic migrants toward poorly paid, low-prestige jobs with limited opportunities for advancement. At the same time, it points to the emotional cost of migration, described by Joseba Achotegui as the Ulysses Syndrome, a form of grief brought about by uprooting, separation, and the loss of language, culture, and homeland.
As a visual device, the coin operates on multiple levels. The repetition of faces creates landscapes where individuality dissolves into rhythm and pattern, while textual fragments embedded in each piece open further layers of meaning, snippets of real conversations that foreground the socioeconomic and psychological realities of migration. Arbitrary monetary values assigned to each coin underscore the absurdity and injustice of how human lives are valued according to origin or social status.
Ultimately, these coins also form part of a game: a symbolic exchange offered to the viewer or collector. A piece may be acquired today and, over time, returned and exchanged for another. In this way, the work remains open to transformation, fostering connection and continuous dialogue.