Absence

These images are part of my project “Absence,” a project about how we (re)define our identity in the face of change

These images are part of my project entitled “Absence.” It started from a reflection that the kitchen, the part of my house where I spend most of my time, has all sorts of different connotations, making it into a very ambivalent place: on the one hand kitchens are associated with warmth, coziness, a safe haven; on the other hand they are also the spaces to which women were traditionally relegated, a domestic prison. I felt I had created a sort of prison for myself, as if my life had shrunk to the walls of this room (through a combination of factors such as working from home, motherhood, moving country, a dying relationship, etc.). This feeling however did not pertain only to the space itself. It felt like a mental prison; a prison within the prison consisting of the expectations of society and those around us, but also created by our own decisions earlier on in life. A prison partially of my own device.

From this starting point I began to reflect more deeply on the feelings (of emptiness, longing, loneliness, doubt, imprisonment) and inner conflicts (decisions, how to act upon these reflections, letting go of dreams) these thoughts provoked in me. As the world in which we live changes, our old views, feelings and perspectives may lose their meaning or become irrelevant. Confronted with changes in our relationships with others and in the place and the world in which we live, we are forced to question our own identity and our place in the world. In a world that seems to be constantly in upheaval, we have to try to find our own voice (again), to reinvent ourselves, to redefine who we are, our aspirations and dreams, always in a dynamic relation with our immediate and the wider world. These images explore these feelings and questions.