Vanished

This project started after my grandma passed away because of covid-19. The physical distance imposed by the situation created a real sense of detachment. Sometimes it feels like it never happened, like she just vanished. So this project tries to explore absence through recovered presence, through an intimate investigation that started from objects as a way of regaining possession of a vanished memory without it being lived.

My Grandma Vanished.
She passed away in May, after having contracted Covid-19 a month earlier. Almina, for everybody Mimma, was 85 and was living in a care home since quite a long time. Years before, one random day she decided she didn’t want to live at home anymore, she wanted someone to take care of her, so she sold her car, most of her belongings, rented her home, and she went living in this structure. She was slightly crazy let's say. Divorced in the '50s, very independent, creative, in her own way, she absolutely loved playing cards. Not being able to be close to her, due to the virus, made her passing away a very strange experience, which this project is trying to narrate. The physical distance imposed by the situation created a real sense of detachment. Sometimes it feels like it never happened, like she just vanished. So this project tries to explore absence through recovered presence, through an intimate investigation that started from objects as a way of regaining possession of a vanished memory without it being lived. A common experience of many, unfortunately, in this last year.
The first step was documenting physical belongings, the few I have left of her, shot almost forensically like "evidences", tangible proof that she actually existed. She had this one book with her, where she kept some photos, old and new, which were shot rather than scanned, to make them feel still like artefacts, but also memories. They have become the means to no longer seek the presence in material things, but rather in memories. This led me to go back to photograph all those places where I had memories of my grandmother, from the red elevator of her old house, to the underpass where she used to drive back and forth because I liked the feeling of a roller coaster that forms in your stomach. These memories are blurred, out of focus, ephemeral, sometimes they are just feelings. At the end there is the present, the real family legacy, my mother, a plate of tortellini which was one of grandma’s favourite dish and now it’s one of ours, dozens of decks of cards at my parent’s house.