In the Mountains, the Sun is Shining

© Matevž Čebašek - Image from the In the Mountains, the Sun is Shining photography project © Matevž Čebašek - A painting of the two highest mountains surrounding my grandmother's ancestral home. © Matevž Čebašek - Image from the In the Mountains, the Sun is Shining photography project View all images ↓
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In the Mountains, the Sun is Shining is an exploration of the fragility and unreliability of memories within the framework of dementia and the Slovenian post-communist environment.

Dementia has been part of my life since I was born. From a very young age, I wondered about my grandfather's perception of reality, as he suffered from severe dementia and was unable to speak. In recent years, these questions have resurfaced while spending time with my grandmother, who now suffers from dementia herself. In an attempt to understand her, I started to explore her past as broadly as possible. I reflected on the memories she still carries, and she often considers them as the present, as well as the "post-memories" that have been passed on to me. I explored the life of a woman and her history in Slovenia through a multitude of archives that interact with photographs from the present. This work is a very intimate narrative that ranges from small to large histories which will remain scarred within my grandmother’s body and the landscapes of her ancestral home. By using my grandmother's personal stories to examine Slovenian collective history, the project rejects institutionalised narratives as ultimate truths and compares them with the fragility and unreliability of memory.

 The project is divided into multiple chapters, each presenting a different aspect of my grandmother’s past. Alongside intimate family narratives, it deals with topics such as migration, poverty, the Second World War, Germanisation, Yugoslavian post-war industrialisation, and the transition towards Slovenian independence.

Through various photographic methods and the collection of oral and written histories, I'm creating a counter-archive that transcends a singular interpretation. By bringing together official historical records, familial recollections and my personal interpretations, I am constructing multi-layered realities that show the disruptions brought about by dementia and the mutations of reality in the post-communist era.

© Matevž Čebašek - Image from the In the Mountains, the Sun is Shining photography project
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The path leads from the house where my grandmother grew up to the fields where she worked in her youth. Today, my house stands on those fields. In March 2024, she forgot that the house existed, yet she still clearly remembers the fields.

© Matevž Čebašek - A painting of the two highest mountains surrounding my grandmother's ancestral home.
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A painting of the two highest mountains surrounding my grandmother's ancestral home.

© Matevž Čebašek - Image from the In the Mountains, the Sun is Shining photography project
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On the left: The first photograph ever taken of my grandmother with her name and birth year written on the back (Angela Markun, married Rehberger, 1935). On the right: A portrait of my grandmother taken during the early stages of her disease in 2022.

© Matevž Čebašek - Image from the In the Mountains, the Sun is Shining photography project
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My grandmother sitting on the porch in front of her house. Moments she can spend outside her bed have become very rare in recent months.

© Matevž Čebašek - Archival boxes and folders containing family photographs and documents.
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Archival boxes and folders containing family photographs and documents.

© Matevž Čebašek - Image from the In the Mountains, the Sun is Shining photography project
© Matevž Čebašek - Image from the In the Mountains, the Sun is Shining photography project
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The area where my great-grandfather was killed during WW2. A local farmer found his body hanging from a tree with his skull crushed skull and buried him. Years later, my great-grandmother managed to track him down so he could be reburied in his hometown.

© Matevž Čebašek - Image from the In the Mountains, the Sun is Shining photography project
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In March 2024, my grandmother’s movements got restricted to her house and the surrounding area. She got a medical bed in the exact same spot where she cared for my grandfather with Alzheimer’s disease. Most of my memories of him were created there.

© Matevž Čebašek - Image from the In the Mountains, the Sun is Shining photography project
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Iskra factory, early in the morning. My grandmother started working in the factory when she was about 16 years old, right after finishing school. She retired at the same time as my grandfather developed Alzheimer’s disease, allowing her to care for him full-time.

© Matevž Čebašek - Image from the In the Mountains, the Sun is Shining photography project
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The forest behind the fence belonged to my grandmother's family until it was nationalised and became Josip Broz Tito's hunting grounds. Many of my grandmother's childhood memories are kept there.

© Matevž Čebašek - Image from the In the Mountains, the Sun is Shining photography project
© Matevž Čebašek - Image from the In the Mountains, the Sun is Shining photography project
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My grandmother with her doll, which she got from my mom. She named her Metka. She sleeps with her every night, often talks to her and shows her pictures from various books. Often she keeps referring to it as me.

© Matevž Čebašek - Image from the In the Mountains, the Sun is Shining photography project
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A portrait of my grandmother looking through the bedroom window in 2023. Today, the view from that same window can hold her attention for hours, during which she often becomes unaware of her surroundings.