reflections on absence
2024-ongoing
reflections on absence is a combination of interrelated projects attempting to visualise three different instances of absence. The absence of family, language and spirituality. The work journeys from London to Luanda, evolving from a personal exploration of absence to an investigation of colonial erasure. In accordance with the distinct kinds of absence three different mediums are used - photography, video and collage of archival images.
hello darling! ola querida! hej älskling!
'hello darling, ola querida, hej alskling' is a photobook made up of two books bound together. the book explores the sprawling, fractured nature of family in both theme and form.
trespassing through my father's house
trespassing in my father's house the second project in the work 'reflections on absence' investigates the boundaries of intrusion. Using estate agent images of her grandmother's house being sold in Angola, Elina wanders through the rooms inserting herself occasionally, experimenting with the feeling of being welcomed into place that she had always been denied access to.
trespassing through sangano beach
trespassing on sangano beach extends out of the feeling of intruding outside of the home. The short video tracks the character's gradual realisation that everything is not as it seems. She has never been to this beach, she doesn't speak this language - in fact how did she get there at all? is this language she yearns to learn truly representative of this place? The video plays with the use of technology as a way to access places and languages that are otherwise not be available to you.
forgive us our trespasses
forgive us our trespasses the third project as part of reflections on absence goes beyond the personal experience of being denied access to a cultural identity, looking instead at how colonial cultural hegemony has systemically eradicated indigenous cultural practices particularly in relation to spiritual practices. these postcards depict missionaries interacting with children - there is an entire archive of postcards similar to this from Angola's colonial period. as a way of actively engaging with this past, in this project replaces the heads of the missionaries with chokwe masks and placed in catholic churches. in the instance of the postcard below - the mask is a Mwana pwo mask honouring female ancestors often symbolic of fertility and childbirth. these masks would be used during initiation ceremonies. the postcard was placed in St Patricks Cathedral gift shop, New York.
Menorca, Spain
