ELIZABETH CEREJIDO
Re-constructing a Family Portrait pieces together fragments of my personal history that emerged while moving my mother from the apartment she shared with my father for several years. This era came to an end with his passing and with her diagnosis of the Alzheimer’s disease. The photographs of the apartment serve as a record of that domestic space through its various transformations. Going through my parent’s possessions, I came across a black purse full of letters that my father had written my mother during a 10 year period of separation, from 1970 when she came to the United States, to 1980 when my father came over through the Mariel boatlift. The letters document a correspondence that narrates a story of love and romance, while the stacks of envelopes serve as a visual timeline. The contrast then between the images of the apartment and those of the letters represent two opposing elements: the former speak of closure and finality while the latter look to the future – hopeful and full of promise.
The nostalgic element in the black and white video projection of my mother
represents both past and present – two states that in her current
condition become interchangeable, malleable and non-linear, allowing her
to navigate between the two.
Absence is an exhibition about two recent events that have dramatically affected my life: my mother’s diagnosis of the Alzheimer’s disease and my father’s sudden death a year and a half later. The title of the exhibition alludes to the absence of my father while also making specific reference to the gradual and inevitable absence of my mother’s memory.
I have chosen to photograph seemingly mundane objects that gain importance due to my mother’s increasingly inability to operate them. The notes on the refrigerator along with the instructions on how to use the telephone are just a small part of daily reminders of her condition and serve as markers of her gradual decline. The unplugged sewing machine becomes a symbol of her illness – a tool used in her lifetime profession as a seamstress now transformed into a furniture piece. Part of the process of living with this condition is the continuous problem of permanently misplacing things of everyday use. The black and white text describes some of the items she has lost, as well as, that which will vanish in the future as she worsens.
The videos are a response to feeling overwhelmingly consumed by my mother’s life after the passing of my father. A greater sense of place, a new set of responsibilities and a renewed perspective on identity also emerged from the process of filming my mother, following her throughout the very streets and places in Little Havana I grew up and where she has lived for the last 33 years.
Though the source of this exhibition stems from very personal experiences,
I fell there is a larger and more universal theme having to do with loss
– intangible and tangible.