They say the shape of our eyes, other things I wouldn‘t know.
My father used to be a stranger to me, someone I didn't know how to talk to or spend time with. I used to think this was the result of my parents' divorce and my father's preoccupation with work. Later in life, I learned that my grandfather’s early passing when my father was just coming of age, and how through the loss he was forced to follow the same career path. I learned that the absence of a traditional paternal role model was something we had in common. In piecing together the fragments of this intergenerational trauma, I began a search to see myself in him.
What does it mean to be a good father? Traditional societal expectations placed upon fathers include a responsibility to work and therefore provide. It is only by being away from the family on a daily basis, physically and emotionally, that the archetypal man can feel he is fulfilling his obligations.
My father's job at the airport is central to his life. In an effort to create a connection, I invited him to my workplace. Photography became a tool to explore our relationship - through collaboration. Our two workplaces serve as backdrops for our encounters - the airport and the photo studio. Through a series of attempts to get to know each other - images are created. These images act as tangible evidence of our relationship, capturing both the distance and the need for connection. They shed light on the often overlooked aspects of fatherhood, such as vulnerability.
By facing the fear of seeing myself in him, I became a role model for my own father in terms of empathy. And the more vulnerable we were with each other, the more we bridged the gap between us.
The house in which I grew up is not small. It is beautiful, has nooks, hidden rooms, windows that swing out wide open, and terraces to hang up the washes. There is a big garden, a lot of space to play on a hot summer day with all of the cousins, to run down the yard and hide between trees. It was my nonna, my fathers mother, who built it. After her husband’s early passing, she intended to make his dream reality. She wanted to create a space where the whole family could live together. Once completed, life started to unfold within its walls.
A house in its essence represents the family itself. It is the earth for roots to spread, the nest to grow, the space to expand. And a house should be full of noise, of aunties gossiping and music playing, of dogs barking and children laughing. When the house is silent, it means that the family is not working as it should.
Twenty years later, my father still lives by himself in the house in which I grew up.
When I come to visit, white walls scream of memories I was never a part of. By projecting archival images onto the walls of the house and then re-photographing them – human presence is brought back into the picture. Through installating the photographs of these beamed projections life-size and in context with an artificial window out of the house itself, the viewer becomes immersed in a story of a life that could have been. A space which is inhabited solely by traces becomes the stage where old memories get a second chance.
As above, so below,The Fool Collective,
The Grey Space in the Middle, The Hague, 2023
Lorena and Marino met in highschool, they got married when they were both 24, and moved into the family home, right after the wedding. When they reached 37, I was born. At 43 they got divorced. I was 6. Today they are 63. I am 26.
The year my curiosity finally had me peek into the boxes in the back of the basement. What I discovered stashed away were the traces of a life lived in love.
Crops taken from my family archive, spanning from my parents first encounter, through their marriage and divorce, up until today.
Hand-bound 120gr Biotop, 18,4 x 13cm, Edition of 12, 2023