Self-Identification
At the age of 13, after another scandal at home, I packed my things and moved house to my aunt Zina. Since then, her house has become mine. In those days, she worked as a photographer at a theater and often took me to performances. Over time, I began to take her camera and take pictures of my friends, myself and surroundings. Despite my not complacent character, she strongly encouraged my love of creativity. I looked at her with admiration and under her influence my taste was formed.
In April 2018, when I was already 23 years old, Zina suddenly began to cough. These days, she was preparing to go to the South of France for a vacation. She was very tired and has worked a lot to have a break from everyday routine. She bought a new camera to play with while walking along the sea coast. A week later, she received the results of an examination of her body, which concluded that she had stage four lung cancer.
The trip was postponed forever.
Zina perceived this as no less than a challenge to life that she should overcome and if she will be strong she could get out from illness. Lately, the situation changed and the pain became unbearable. Her life became a matter of time and I could not fully understand that the disease was followed by death. For 8 months I watched her and tried to capture my experiences with a camera. Although Zina wouldn’t allow herself to be photographed. Only once, she did agree to a session in a hat, with her favorite cat Niasia.
During that period my internal conflict was, first accompanied by a denial of Zina. I had a desire to separate her from myself. But then she passed away and something happened to me. I noticed that my manner of speaking, moving, expressing emotions - became her copy. Looking through Zina’s photo archives, I realized that things that caught her attention are the same, as caught my eye when I hold the camera in my hands.
The story of the last months of Zina’s life is my attempt to face the fact of fatalism as an indispensable part of the human experience of being dependent on the intellectual environment that makes us who we are.
.... Three years after Zina past away,I made a trip to the south coast of France. I took the the same camera she bought and through myself, as a part of Zina in this world, I photographed landscapes as I believe Zina would have done.