SOFIA and THE OTHERS
When my grandmother Sofia having aged 93 years lost his husband, she remained alone.
So her children decided to move her to a private institution for the elderly where she could best be taken care of, even if she was still relatively healthy.
She was a housewife of rural background and she spent her long life performing domestic chores such as cooking and washing laundry by hand, not to mention the seasonal rigors of the vineyards the family cultivated.
Then, of the sudden she found herself deported to a very different reality, with strange people, forced into remission, into aseptic and cold surroundings, an inert and silent detention.
Seeing her in this place contrasted with memories of her in her old warm and sunny house in the fields had filled me with sorrow each time visited and ultimately pushed me to tell the story of her estrangement. I began to shoot photos of her and of the other elderly met there.
Looking straight into their eyes, one cannot ignore the deep sadness, suffering, solitude, and resignation tearing up; turned as they were from their homes and from their last chance to be who they've grown their whole lives to be, then kept almost as if buried alive and waiting for death.
So her children decided to move her to a private institution for the elderly where she could best be taken care of, even if she was still relatively healthy.
She was a housewife of rural background and she spent her long life performing domestic chores such as cooking and washing laundry by hand, not to mention the seasonal rigors of the vineyards the family cultivated.
Then, of the sudden she found herself deported to a very different reality, with strange people, forced into remission, into aseptic and cold surroundings, an inert and silent detention.
Seeing her in this place contrasted with memories of her in her old warm and sunny house in the fields had filled me with sorrow each time visited and ultimately pushed me to tell the story of her estrangement. I began to shoot photos of her and of the other elderly met there.
Looking straight into their eyes, one cannot ignore the deep sadness, suffering, solitude, and resignation tearing up; turned as they were from their homes and from their last chance to be who they've grown their whole lives to be, then kept almost as if buried alive and waiting for death.
120 Color Transparencies Film
Archival Inkjet Watercolor Prints
“11,8 x 11,8" Image
Edition 1/5 + 3 Artist proofs
2005/2009