These seemingly unconnected people are my great grandparents. The only genuine fact that I know about the one on the left is that she was German. The relevant fact about the one on the right is that his father was prosecuted by the communist regime. He fought at WWII and went all the way to Berlin and was there on the Victory day. He was brave and got a medal for it.
From the perspective of the world I live in today, something he has done was indeed very brave.
Their story does not exist. Years have I spent wondering, what is it, this story? What has happened to her family, to her language, her identity? How did they meet? How did they make it work?! She has become someone else over the years, and I EXIST. 3 generations later, I exist. And this IS the story.
I edited these images many many years ago, when first adequate versions of Photoshop were released probably. They were very old those photos, and very damaged.
I look at them and think: yes, this is the WHY of my practice. The real quest is to understand the mystery of those 2 photographs. How do they connect?
I do not have the story, but what I do have is my body, the body that was born as a result of this (and others of similar nature) union. I look at them and I see a reflection of my own world, the one I live in today. Is there any memory in my bones that can tell me what has really happened? Are they telling me this story by guiding me along the path I am walking now? Yes. I believe so.
The integration of such memories which we do not see, only feel, happens when we rewrite the story, making it relevant to our times. To uncover it through my own modern narrative, I use the medium of expired film photography. It has happened naturally while I was doing my MA a few years ago. Now it has evolved into experimental film, movement and body centred enquiries that become a combination of text, installation and photography. Sometimes they do not become anything, which is okay too. It is the process of seeing, connecting, expressing and manifesting that becomes the new story.
In my practice, I often overlay my life's story with that of others to tell something that is like a multiple exposure photograph. When I work with people, I contribute my creative vision and I see theirs as well. It is truly generative, because the ink is alive and the pen is only revealing the image. This is a deeply feminine process. I do believe that the feminine and the masculine can meet without the battle, embracing the generative nature of the true union.
To me, this principle is at the core of the new wave of feminism which I sense is coming.