Madre e Figlia ( 2012 - 2014)

Project Statement:

Madre e Figlia questions themes of parent/child separation, exploring feelings of rejection, shame, desire, projection and intergenerational gap that shape particularly the mother/daughter relationship. The work combines autobiographical texts, real life events, and re-staged family portraits.

Starting from my own experience of being a daughter, the ambiguity of the relationship with my mother is shown through two symbolic vantage points, highlighting both our distance and closeness; this is done respectively through the saints and the dresses.

To fulfill the need to bond with my mum I recreated dynamics we had during my childhood, as well as searching for my family story and pictures, as personal images could display feelings essential for individual self- understanding. The project includes a series of self-portraits, some of which are made in collaboration with my mother, that follow the convention of the family portrait. In themthe harmony between us is undermined by a perturbing sense of tension and unease that continues to define our relationship into the present day.

My interest is to subvert the codes of the representation of family photography portraiture in order to question the absence of records of those unspoken feelings that make the process of separation between mother and daughter difficult.