Jellyfish

Jellyfish It's a love story between my grandmother and me. It's about believing that family history will never be lost when you care about it.

The project about my paternal grandmother, Nelly, with Alzheimer's began when my father passed away.

My grandmother was always very present in my life and in this moment of pain I needed her love to continue.

I wish I could talk to her because she is still alive but today she is no longer able to talk.

At first, I tried, with the help of my mother and sister who live with her in Brazil, to take some remote photos, in 2021. We saw that this process would be tiring for her, already very weak, and I decided to stop.

I then started to rescue our old photos and work with collage, I started putting what I remember of her and of me in physical form so as not to lose it just like she lost with the illness. During the process, I photographed the present that reminds me of memories she created with me as a child, such as our city parks, the beaches on Sundays that we always return to with jelly burns and our games at home with her profession as a nurse.

Being connected to her and my past made me realize how she could be suffering inside without anyone noticing.

Seeing her present but so far away made me reflect on how we want a person so much after they are gone.

It hurts to see her here without being here.

Alzheimer's is a disease with no cure yet but with a lot of advanced research and hope.

At the beginning of the project I felt very close to her, I was excited and trying to connect but the feeling changed when I started to imagine her trapped inside her body lost in her own story with sudden mood changes and fear.