Unfamiliar belongings - A Clementina Pagani

2022 - 2024

 

 

 

 

A box of my mother's family photographs and I no longer know anyone. Only my mother, her mother and her father are familiar faces to me. Not the places, never seen. Not the people I've never spoken to. I don't remember their names, I wouldn't recognize them on the street. I can't ask anymore, no one can answer. 

But they are a part of where I belong.

 

A diary of my mother’s childhood memories led me to imagine who they could be and what ties they had with my mother and therefore, distantly, with me like threads stretched between places and time. 

 

In particular, I think of Clementina Pagani of whom I have letters and letters addressed to my mother. I only remember that she called her la Mentina and I imagine I am responding to her with this work.

 

 

archive photo, copper, knotted dandelion, collage.