A cloud above me

Dates

2020 - Ongoing
Author

Alejandra Arévalo
Recognition

6 Free Portfolio reviews - PhMuseum 2021 Photography Grant

During my childhood and part of my adolescence, I idealized the figure of a non-existent father. Through the stories of family members, the figure of an honorable and loving man was built in my head. It was as if everyone had agreed to tell the same story, to create a different reality and perhaps to ease his death. I used to imagine how his presence would have changed and influenced the stages of my life.

Through the inertia of existence, I knew that my father had left us a few months after my mother got pregnant. Perhaps, he was afraid of the challenges that came with forming a second family and with a high-risk pregnancy.

This is when the story begins.

This project tries to make peace with this event that marks me without even knowing it. It goes from the imaginary to reality, from life to death, from longing to restlessness.

I go back to the family archive to link reality and fiction. I intervene these memories; I cut the silhouette of a man that represents him, the void, the tangible that never exists but imaginary was always there.

These archives photos are in front of a sky background, where he lives now. These clouds harbor my thoughts, stories I was told, frustrations, and inquietudes. I also portrait myself trying to explore the grieve of someone I didn't know consciously. It is through this self observatory exercise that I understand that with him by my side I would never be who and where I am now.

It is by the construction and transformation of these memories and moments, I realized this is not his story, it is ours.

This project not only reflects my experience but rather a rooted phenomenon in Latin America.

© Alejandra Arévalo - Image from the A cloud above me photography project

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I remember seeing a portrait of him. He was with his white checked shirt. Recently I asked my mother where this portrait was, she told me that she has thrown it away because we were not supposed to keep things from him in order to overcome the loss.

© Alejandra Arévalo - Image from the A cloud above me photography project

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Nursery school and Kindergarten were the possibility for my mom to work and at the same time to study her specialization in rural planning.

© Alejandra Arévalo - Image from the A cloud above me photography project

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I always wonder why he was not in the photos of this day if he was still alive. The truth is that he was already gone and we hardly had any contact with him.

© Alejandra Arévalo - Image from the A cloud above me photography project

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4 For some cultures, falling feathers mean that you have a protector angel with you. I used to believe that he was always watching and taking care of me from the sky, as my mother used to tell me.

© Alejandra Arévalo - Image from the A cloud above me photography project

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During the past year, I began a process of healing the wound he left. I was meant to reconnect with myself and understand that what happened was out of my hands. It is with this process that I realized that is in not my fault for him to be gone, but it is rather an expanded problem in Colombia and Latin America. The question now is: Why is the paternal figure so diffuse in the region?

© Alejandra Arévalo - My mom told me that my father loved to eat raw onion. I used to think that it was a raw onion that killed him.

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My mom told me that my father loved to eat raw onion. I used to think that it was a raw onion that killed him.

© Alejandra Arévalo - The only photograph were my mother is together with him.

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The only photograph were my mother is together with him.

© Alejandra Arévalo - Image from the A cloud above me photography project

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In 2017, I decided to make a trip to the region where my father was born. I visited his grave for the second time in my life. The concierge of the cemetery gave me this paper with my father's name and gravestone number. I kept this piece of paper for future visits.

© Alejandra Arévalo - Image from the A cloud above me photography project

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Every important event gave me room to imagine how it would be like if was there, by my side. I used to compare my family with the ones of my friends and I used to think that if he was alive he would be there for us. In fact, that wouldn't have changed anything, he wouldn't have been there anyway.

© Alejandra Arévalo - Image from the A cloud above me photography project

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In 2017 when my mother decided to tell me the truth, that my father was in fact dead, but that he left us when he found out that my mother was pregnant, I began to think that we were bounded by blood but nothing else. In reality, I was never a daughter to him.

© Alejandra Arévalo - Image from the A cloud above me photography project

© Alejandra Arévalo - Two crosses on the local cemetery.

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Two crosses on the local cemetery.

© Alejandra Arévalo - Flowers for the dead.

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Flowers for the dead.

© Alejandra Arévalo - Image from the A cloud above me photography project

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The truth came to me like a punch on the face or rather in my memory. To discover and accept that a lot of the stories I was told were false made me question about who I was, from where I came and if I had ever been loved.

© Alejandra Arévalo - Image from the A cloud above me photography project

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Until I was nine, I used to see a black shadow that followed me. For the psychologists, it was my way to represent my father figure, for my mother, it was the capacity to see beyond things, and for other people it was pure imagination.

© Alejandra Arévalo - I was never a very religious person, but I always prayed that he would be okay wherever he was.

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I was never a very religious person, but I always prayed that he would be okay wherever he was.

© Alejandra Arévalo - Image from the A cloud above me photography project

© Alejandra Arévalo - Image from the A cloud above me photography project

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An empty chair to which I can express how his absence has affected me, but also a chair to generate forgiveness Just an empty chair.

© Alejandra Arévalo - Naún sitting in my aunts' backyard. This is one of the few photographs where his face is recognizable.

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Naún sitting in my aunts' backyard. This is one of the few photographs where his face is recognizable.

© Alejandra Arévalo - With his absence, the bonding mother-daughter became solid.

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With his absence, the bonding mother-daughter became solid.