Cash is virtually worthless, it’s cheaper to cover walls with peso bills than to buy wallpaper, and simple shopping trips turn into expeditions to find the best deals … Photographer Irina Werning captures the chaos
Irina Werning had to buy new batteries for her camera flash the other day. The Buenos Aires-based photographer first tried her local supermarket, but the price was too high. She went to an office supplies store, a corner shop, a kiosk, a tool shop, another supermarket. This small errand had become an expedition in circumventing spiralling prices in a country whose inflation rates are projected to reach triple figures by next year – among the highest in the world.
“You grow used to it. Since I was born, there’s been inflation, even since before my father was born. It’s such a part of our daily life that it’s inside of us,” Werning says. “I am 46, and for 36 years of my life I’ve had double-digit inflation; on average, that’s 80% inflation every year.”
Werning photographed her husband papering walls with 10-peso bills – which is cheaper than buying wallpaper. Her husband’s trousers are worn deliberately low, ‘to show how exposed and naked we are to inflation’
