Spores

OTHER CITIES: LONDON MEMORYSCAPE

Spores

by Verónica Posada Álvarez

30 October 2025

A diaspora is like a spore – self-sustaining and fluctuating daily.
In this poetic reflection on migration and the Latin American diaspora in London, Verónica Posada Álvarez interweaves her personal journey, dreams, and archival work. Spores was first created in 2022 for the exhibition Cloud Sediments at Hyphen Lab in form of a booklet and short film.
Below, read the introduction, watch the film and download the booklet in English; to read, watch and download the Spanish version, please visit this page.

Spores
A diaspora is like a spore; self-sustaining, fluctuating daily. It is the author of the invisible, each individual member is a word.

Frequent passage and salt water wear away at the path. Uncomfortable travels are fruitful for a wandering poet who uses discomfort to start dialogues in new places reached via migration. Taking a new direction is in itself an act of invention, what you see creates an image of yourself and in turn you create an image of what you see.

A premonition of journeys taken through urban spaces, a city formed and experienced by visceral reactions to stimulus. These reactions clash and are confused with the sensorial feelings produced by my native tropical city; this host city in the north of the globe is cold and rough. Areas of common ground are found: two cities both divided by a river, and in both I lived in the south. In one I identify as Latin American, in the other being a woman is a migratory force and for me, all forces of change come with an impulse for creation.

A diaspora is a spore. Geographical dispersion leads to the creation of a home made of otherness; the ability to be another, of a change in perspective coded in us by the journeys we take and the move from our place of origin to a host town.

To experience the entire essay, download the booklet as a PDF here and/or watch the audiovisual version:

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VERÓNICA POSADA ÁLVAREZ is an urban researcher, lecturer, and designer with a robust academic trajectory and fluency across a wide range of creative practices. Her work bridges research and practice, with a focus on activism, social justice, and applied methodologies. She is an Associate Researcher in Creative and Cultural Industries at the University of Derby and currently an IAS Visiting Research Fellow.

Lead image (detail) © Verónica Posada Álvarez