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 closeness and distance; this is done respectively through the dresses and the saints.
To fulfill the need to bond with my mum I recreate dynamics we had during my childhood. Moreover to find traces of the relationship with her, I look back at my family album, as personal images could display feelings essential for individual self- understanding. What I see is a disjunction between what is represented in the family snapshots and what is the remembered experience. Furthermore the project includes a series of self-portraits I made, some of which are in collaboration with my mother, that follow the convention of the family portrait. Yet the harmony between us is undermined by a perturbing sense of tension and unease that continues to define our relationship into the present day.