Moving away from the modern days, the images of family generations, which are repeatedly revived by our memories, change and change. Sometimes their lines are erased, but other lines emerge on a surface, depending on to what memory we address — whether own or someone else’s. And it forces to correct portraits of our relatives again and again. Previous ideas of them break up, delaminate, multiply, dooming us to circulation of recalls.
I distinctly understood it after several years studying of my family history on the basis of personal photoarchive. Forcing the relatives to repeat the same stories over and over again and, looking at old pictures, to recollect the details, finally I understood that the scene of my family life doesn’t clear up even if to try to restore events by dates. It seemed as if I looked in a deep pit, trying to discern reflection, but stones falling from above disturbed a smooth water surface.
Experience of the remembrance’s analysis gained with age doesn’t allow us to reach the absolute clearness of family and individual memory and at the same time an impenetrable gloom of oblivion.
My name is Anastasia Bogomolova. I was born in 1985 in Kustanai, Kazakhstan. Moved to Russia in 1997. Worked as a journalist and editor for several years before pursuing photography. Currently I focus on photographic research of Kasli (Ural, Russia), the hometown of my mother’s family.
Weekend portfolio selected by Diane Dufour
