Before me
2009. // In the series of photographs “Before me” I question my own identity in relation to my mother, observed via a very tangible – material thing – mother’s love...
2009. // In the series of photographs “Before me” I question my own identity in relation to my mother, observed via a very tangible – material thing – mother’s love letters.
I associate the reading of other people’s love letters – notwithstanding that it is a bit rude and voyeuristic – with feelings that arise from the expectations and what we find when we open them: their diverse textures, the smell of old and worn out paper on which are written, the fact that they have been kept for all these years.
The letters from the series of photographs “Before me” were written in the period from 1968 to 1981, spanning from the years of my mother’s adolescence to the early relationship with my father.
At that time, there was no Internet, e-mails, text messaging, chats and other, today commonplace means of communication, which have generally replaced the writing of letters.
The speed and superficiality of today's written communication and the instability of the media leaves almost no room for contemplation, experiencing feelings and no time to achieve an emotional distance. It is almost impossible to preserve and archive it, as it was possible with handwritten letters.
On the other hand, this subject touches upon the subtle relationship with my mother who allowed me to take a look into her private life, who, through her letters, let me into her world of past romantic feelings, which prompt me to question my relationship with her, and enabled me to get to know one part of her personality and her past that I didn’t know existed.
