IF I COULD ONLY REMEMBER

This photo represents the help my family received during difficult times we experienced in communist Poland.

This picture represents how people were trying to flee the country for a better life. There was always a chance of getting caught. I use this round form throughout this project to keep the viewer in a dream state. This image is between dream and reality.

This photo represents a watchtower. There was a lot of surveillance at this time in Poland, and people’s each and every moves were being watched.

This is a photo of me holding a picture of my parents at a younger age. I use these kind of pictures several times in the project to illustrate how I am looking for answers in my family archives. These pictures are also intended as self-portraits, because I never use my real face in this project (except for one picture of me as a child).

This is a representation of a watchtower. This work is about my memories of that time, but as I was only one or two years old, my memories are built from what my family and relatives told me about this period. What I do in this project is rebuild these memories and show the viewer that I am doing the work of building and looking for answers.

I use this round form throughout this project to keep the viewer in a dream state. Sometimes I create what seems like a real environment and sometimes I show abstract situations to create this confusion as to whether what the viewer is looking at is in real life or is a memory.

I took this picture of my dad to put it in resonance with another photo in this project where he is much younger. It shows how time has passed, and how memories have faded.

This is the Matterhorn, a well-known symbol of Switzerland. This photo represents me, looking at my dreams far away. Switzerland has always been in my mind, like some dream I’m trying to reach.

This picture talks about a past time and place. When we flee Poland, we left everything behing for our travel.

This work is about my memories of that time, but as I was only one or two years old, my memories are built from what my family and relatives told me about this period. What I do in this project is rebuild these memories and show the viewer that I am doing the work of building and looking for answers. Communism was why my parents decided to flee the country.

This is my fathers passport, marked with a stemp when he arrived in Germany and an other one when he arrived in Canada.

This picture is about a family story. My grand-father was a jeweler, but the communists closed his shop because they considered that what he did was meant for rich people. Those kind of practices were not allowed.

I use this round form throughout this project to keep the viewer in a dream state. Sometimes I create what seems like a real environment and sometimes I show abstract situations to create this confusion as to whether what the viewer is looking at is in real life or is a memory.

This represents me being in what seems like a dream, but everything looks so real. I use these kind of portraits throughout the series to create a bond between the representation of me and that of my parents, but also to create a transformation to these round shapes, as if they were becoming clearer and closer to the real world.

This project taks about my memories and dreams, this picture allows the viewer to enter those dreams.

I use this round form throughout this project to keep the viewer in a dream state. Sometimes I create what seems like a real environment and sometimes I show abstract situations to create this confusion as to whether what the viewer is looking at is in real life or is a memory.

This is the picture that started it all; my first memory, which strangely coincides with the last day we spent at our refugee camp in Germany, before flying to Canada. The memory is me, sitting on the edge of a Jacuzzi, I then see my mother, wrapping me with a big towel.
With this project, I am retracing my memories of what I lived, and also the memories my mind created with the stories I’ve been told by my parents and relatives.

This represents me being in what seems like a dream, but everything looks so real. I use these kind of portraits throughout the series to create a bond between the representation of me and that of my parents, but also to create a transformation to these round shapes, as if they were becoming clearer and closer to the real world.

My memories are so real to me, I can almost feel everything I remember. If I could only be certain they are real!