Unfamiliar belongings - A Clementina Pagani

2022 - 2024

 

 

 

 

A box of photographs of my mother's family but 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 because no one can answer.

And yet they are a part to which I belong.
A diary of my mother's childhood memories led me to imagine who they could be and what ties they have with my mother and therefore, distantly, with me as if they were 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.