Fragments

The initial idea and gesture behind Fragments was to save family photographs from ‘dissipation’. The photographic collection of the elderly who have no family is especially endangered.

These often end up in the trash if no one claims them, furthermore, without a listening family member the stories behind the photographs are not told and carry on in remembrance. Consequently, I decided to collaborate with elderly women who have no descendants.

To maintain the connection between the photograph and the story, I stepped into the role of their granddaughter to whom they recount their herstories. I recorded their stories, reattached these to the photographs; furthermore, I photographed the storytellers.

I chose this particular group because of their role in historical storytelling. Official historical narratives are always linear and continuous, where events are fixed on the timeline and mostly narrated by men. I anticipated that the storytelling that the five ladies conduct would result in a different type of history.

I titled the project Fragments because I believe that the emerging herstories fragments – social taboos such as divorce, miscarriage, domestic violence and suicide – the female experience once inserted into the discourse are ongoingly reconfigures history while drawing attention to the gaps in-between the information which absence should also be acknowledged.