Fragile memory
At the age of sixteen, I left my parents’ house. I went far away and wrote letters to my aging grandparents. And then, many years later, they sent me a parcel from an empty house, a suitcase with a large archive of family photos and personal belongings of my relatives.
I spent a long time unpacking the parcel, a suitcase full of old photos, letters, postcards, magazine clippings, my grandmother’s perfume and soap… the parcel smelled of old things that had been lying in the empty house for a long time.
It is difficult to relive and comprehend the past, which revealed events to me that changed my judgment of loved ones, I got to know my grandmother again and learned a lot about life long before I was born. The situation between me and the things in the suitcase gave rise to the fear of not knowing, the pain of missing out and a great desire to know.
I began to use photography as a tool for establishing contact with things, laying them out and fixing them. Photography as an effect of “freezing” an object is a powerful tool for preserving memories. This helps me not only to preserve moments, but also to understand myself more deeply by constantly returning to the pictures. Through fixation, I make visible what is hidden, to experience and feel – this is an important stage. At the same time, I imagine my memory as elements of the landscape, in order to be able to complete the gaps, to understand the ignorance.
Working with a personal archive, I restore certain connections and identity, the similarity of characters and compare my life line and the loved one I resemble.
Breaking down time boundaries, I enter the past through letters. I see “another me” when I wrote to my relatives 30 years ago. This is an opportunity to exist in two spaces at the same time, without any contradictions. Letters make it clear that you exist, but you exist in the form of “another me”. I “freeze”, remember and move on.
Letters that have been kept for over 30 years shed light on family relationships, love and support, life was so different for all the children in the family, and much was not indicated, much was closed to me. There are so many faces in the photographs that I cannot identify, and I will no longer know who they were. I compare the inscriptions on the backs with names, years and faces, and find similarities with me.
