2010
LOST LOVE STORIES
One day, while walking through a flea market, I discovered a photo album of a couple on holidays in the region of Provence, France. It was likely in the 60s. They took photographs of each other in the fields, by the sea, at historic sites, cities and other landscapes. In none of the photos, they appeared together, what may indicate that they had no contact with other people during that trip, as if they travelled alone, isolated from the rest of the world.
The woman appeared to be older than the man, and his gaze towards her through the camera captivated me. I think they were lovers on a love journey, likely in secret. I was moved by the abandonment of those photographs, taken and kept with affection, and I imagined some possibilities for the story of that photo album. My initial thought was that this was a forbidden romance. The second: because the attachment to romantic memories is more typical of the female universe, it was the woman who kept the album. Third, after being secretly preserved for a long time, the album was discarded with her death.
From that day on, I began to look for discarded photographs of couples wherever I went. The work presented herein is the result of that search: a collection of recurring images of couples found, in almost all cultures. Love stories that were recorded and, at a certain point, damaged discontinued and lost.
This is a work in progress. I create fictional narratives from the abandoned memories by editing the images, adding colours and combining them with text and other found images and objects. My intention is to offer a memory of those faded love stories, giving new meaning to the records that were eventually discarded by the end of the relationship, death or some immeasurable embarrassment. Through the creation of fictional narratives for anonymous romances, the present work commemorates the encounter and separation of two individuals, driven by love and passion, fear, death, and the numerous unforeseen occurrences of a lifetime.
One day, while walking through a flea market, I discovered a photo album of a couple on holidays in the region of Provence, France. It was likely in the 60s. They took photographs of each other in the fields, by the sea, at historic sites, cities and other landscapes. In none of the photos, they appeared together, what may indicate that they had no contact with other people during that trip, as if they travelled alone, isolated from the rest of the world.
The woman appeared to be older than the man, and his gaze towards her through the camera captivated me. I think they were lovers on a love journey, likely in secret. I was moved by the abandonment of those photographs, taken and kept with affection, and I imagined some possibilities for the story of that photo album. My initial thought was that this was a forbidden romance. The second: because the attachment to romantic memories is more typical of the female universe, it was the woman who kept the album. Third, after being secretly preserved for a long time, the album was discarded with her death.
From that day on, I began to look for discarded photographs of couples wherever I went. The work presented herein is the result of that search: a collection of recurring images of couples found, in almost all cultures. Love stories that were recorded and, at a certain point, damaged discontinued and lost.
This is a work in progress. I create fictional narratives from the abandoned memories by editing the images, adding colours and combining them with text and other found images and objects. My intention is to offer a memory of those faded love stories, giving new meaning to the records that were eventually discarded by the end of the relationship, death or some immeasurable embarrassment. Through the creation of fictional narratives for anonymous romances, the present work commemorates the encounter and separation of two individuals, driven by love and passion, fear, death, and the numerous unforeseen occurrences of a lifetime.