“MEMORIES”- film-installation in loop
The past grows with time and populates our memories, which come and go in seemingly accidental waves and flashes, but all have the same origin: our inner being and its movement through time. The video is dedicated to the director’s mother, whose death symbolizes the ultimate farewell to childhood. It is a journey through visual and symbolic impressions deeply rooted in her memory that add color to her daily life and feed her artistic imagination. One winter she returns to her country of origin, which she left in the turmoil of the war years ago and finds a frozen black and white landscape. The reality of her journey dissolves in the warm colors of old memories and their archetypal intensity reconstructs the world that shaped the artist’s identity. All those seemingly detached and irrelevant details envelop the most intimate determinants of one’s personality. Without dialogue, the music is the only guide through the emotionally turbulent state of returning to one’s own past.
In 2009 the video installation was awarded by the prestigious van Dokkum’s prize, presented by the Genootschap Kunstliefde, the royal art association in Utrecht, and nominated for B.J.Kerkhof Award in the same year. The work consisted of the movie “Memories” projected on an old TV set in a makeshift room built in the gallery, reminiscent of a room from the artist’s childhood with an original tablecloth handmade by her mother and an empty picture frame symbolizing the feeling of a void.
All footage for this film was taken from the artist’s private archive, shot in the area of Croatia where she was born.