My Space: Damián Stoppani

For the past five years my workshop has been a 1970 Mercedes-Benz bus. In it, I’ve travelled the length of the Americas, making and repairing stringed instruments as I go. I started in Argentina, fixing violins for El Sistema orchestras and showing the young players how I work, in exchange for whatever the orchestra could pay – and sometimes I’d accept food or diesel instead. Then I started travelling further: Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, the US and Canada in that order. After making it to Alaska, I turned around and now I’m back in Mexico. My plan was to put the bus on a ship at Veracruz and continue on to Europe, but Covid-19 thwarted that plan…