"What were these albums hiding from me? What do they reveal about my relationship with family?"
Artist: Claire Legrand Loyola
Project: Constellations
"In 2022 I looked at my old family albums, and when I turned the pages and rediscovered these faces from the past, I had the feeling that the images were lying to me and said nothing about my impressions. I undertook this work as a dissection, with the aim of understanding what was hidden in these photographs which reached me with such strangeness. Now, the question was, what were these albums hiding from me? What do they reveal about my relationship with family?
To try and answer these questions, I looked into the imaginary of these albums we strive to preserve intact. Through the photos in family albums appear implicit questions that I try to explore in my own work."
"How can we talk about deaths, breakups, mourning, when traditional images seek to escape them?
Why do these albums never talk about heartbreak?
Where is masculine tenderness?
How can we mean that certain relationships are sometimes more vital, and reliable than those present in our blood family?
How can I talk about a family that is not mine?
What do we inherit from one generation to another?
Why does family have a more central place than friendship?
All these hidden questions shape the way we relate to others. This series also talks about moments of sweetness and possible union. These intervals, where, despite corrosive tensions, moments of tenderness and fragility appear. This is where beauty, as bizarre as it is enveloping, can be born, because isn’t it disconcerting to manage to love ourselves when everything seems to fundamentally oppose us?"
Translation
Me:
(...) this situation. I can’t stand hearing ‘you’ve always been this or that’ anymore. I feel like I was stuck in one identity when I was born.
This dispute left me in such a state of confusion. I don’t know.
In reality, I can’t just see him as a sick person.
That doesn’t excuse everything. This goes too far.
I’m afraid of what I carry inside me. Of everything I secretly inherited.
Do you think I could hurt someone like they hurt me?
Do you think I’m capable of it?
I am so afraid of giving in to this violence.
She always told me that I should love him even if he destroys me. I refuse to be forced to fucking love him. It’s not normal to want to die in contact with your family.
My friend:
He can be sick AND dangerous.
That you can identify this darkness in him and within your family is already a way of separating yourself from it.
He acts in the omnipotence of his madness, you don’t because you question yourself.
Being locked up in one’s thoughts, one’s «clan», one’s «certainties», injunctions to love, that’s violence.
Family relationships, relationships in general, are made to connect, and with the best of oneself I believe. Not with violence. Not with death. As a friend, (...)
© Claire Loyola
Editor: Kiko