Memory Lane
Statement of Intent
My project ‘Memory Lane’ explores the relationship between personal identity and memory as well as truth and realism in photography, through creating a fictional past for myself (and implicitly for my close family), as a subterfuge and displacement mechanism for the trauma of living in the darkest years of communist Romania and the tumultuous events of 1989 and 1990.
I was born in 70s Romania. The first decade and a half of my life occurred during one of the harshest periods the country went through under the dictatorial regime of Ceausescu. As a child, I knew no different - and the protective shield of my loving family made my childhood as easy as it could have been. Coming of age though, I gradually became aware of the terrible conditions that my family and millions like us were being subjected to.
Food was scarce and rationed, everyone in the family had to queue for hours just to buy bread. Heating and electricity were unheard of on many winter days. I remember water froze on our school blackboard one day. Forced labour was the norm for many pupils and students during holidays. The ‘free’ healthcare was subject to bribes and often reserved to the party-privileged. So was getting a better job or better housing. Young women grew up terrified at the prospect of unwanted pregnancies, as contraception and abortion were illegal and stories of horrific botched abortions rife. Girls weren’t allowed black tights; boys weren’t allowed long hair. Rock music was considered subversive and anything foreign was evil. Religion was banned and churches were demolished alongside thousands of historically significant buildings to make room for megalomaniac architecture. Travel was a ridiculously unachievable dream. So was owning a car. There was no free speech and a generalised fear of the secret police.
Almost all of my friends grew up with the desire to leave, to escape this oppressive regime – some even attempted it, most with no success. The demise of Ceausescu’s regime in 1989 brought immense hope to all of us, squashed too soon by the realisation that the neo-communist regime that followed was there to stay. When the peaceful anti-communist demonstrations in the University Square ended in brutal and bloodied suppression at the hand of thousands of miners called to the capital by the president himself, something in our young idealistic selves died forever. Vast numbers of people did everything in their power to leave the country after that – many chose Western European countries, USA or Canada as their new homes. My own sister left Romania for England in 1992 and I eventually also made England my home 11 years later.
And many of our friends and acquaintances did too. Some adapted and stayed, some returned. Life was never the same for either. But the grass was not always greener and an emigrant’s life is no plain sailing. Many struggled to adapt and thrive in a new foreign culture. Many who made a ‘success’ out of their new Western lives did so at the high cost of being separated from their families and friends and were left with a strong love/hate relationship towards their birth country. Everyone’s sense of belonging was gradually alienated, the more they ‘became’ more assimilated by their adoptive cultures. No longer ‘Romanian’ when visiting, not ever ‘English’ or ‘French’ or ‘American’. Being asked ‘where is home for you’ - a difficult question to answer.
Looking back at our recent history we often blamed fate for being born Romanian, without actually negating the rich cultural heritage that we never stoped cherishing. Why did this have to happen to us? What would have life looked like if we’d been born elsewhere?
It is this question that guides my work in progress, which is constructed in the form of a teenager’s photographic diary that subtly leads the viewer to assume I had always been living in England. The diary is focused around the time of late 80s / early 90s which saw political trauma and unsettled times that clearly marked my young mind, even if not fully acknowledged or processed at the time.
I use real photographs of myself or taken by me, as well as artefacts from that time, which I have bought specifically for this purpose, to create fictional memories, or re-contextualise real memories.
For my research I have looked at theorists exploring the notions of memory and family identity especially in post-traumatic contexts, such as Marianne Hirsch’s concept of post-memory, Annette Kuhn’s analysis of (re)interpreting childhood images in ‘Remembrance’ as well as structure and meaning in the modern photo album in Anna Dahlgren’s ‘the ABC of the modern photo album’ and Rose G ‘Doing family photography’.
I’ve also looked at other practitioners exploring alternative pasts or futures in an autobiographic fashion such as Phillip Toledano’s ‘When I Was Six’ or ‘The Many Sad Fates of Mr. Toledano’, or Chino Otsuka’s ‘Photo Album’ (‘Imagine Finding Me’) and ‘Memoriography’, as well as those exploring the relationship between place, memory and death such as Andrea Botto’s ‘Memory Room’
Alongside these, I’ve had a real trip down memory lane looking through my own and my family’s photo archives to select the images for the diary. I’ve also studied archives of London imagery to decide on locations chosen to create the composites or use as anchors to re-contextualise my own images.
Memory Lane
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In my documentary I provide more detail and rationale about my choices and decisions as well as methodology and tools used to create the work.
Memory Lane - Documentary
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