Emotional Encounters
Our relationship with old family photos and photo albums is deeply emotional. When we browse through old photographs, cherished memories come to mind, but painful questions can emerge as well, especially when the family’s past is fraught with difficult and unspoken issues. Photographs possess the power to unsettle us and stir conflicting emotions, lingering in our minds as if demanding an answer.
This exhibition brings together works by Aline Motta, Sofia Yala, and Yassmin Forte. These projects share a common thread: each builds upon old family photographs the artists have unearthed. These images not only sparked their artistic inquiries but also form a substantive part of their work, serving as a vehicle to engage with family histories burdened by the lasting impact of Portuguese colonialism in Brazil, Angola, and Mozambique.
When Brazilian artist Aline Motta learned that her grandmother’s unknown father had been a white teenage boy, for whose father her grandmother worked, she set out to uncover her family’s history. In a symbolic act recalling the routes of the slave trade, she carries the photographs of her relatives back to their roots in Portugal and Sierra Leone. Sofia Yala’s photo series documents the artist’s own creative process, as they research the history of their own Angolan family. Yassmin Forte’s photo series depicts the love story between her Mozambican mother and her father, who served in the Portuguese army – a love complicated by the legacy of the colonial wars.
Typically, a well-documented family history and thick photo albums spanning several generations testify to a family’s social and economic privilege, while modest backgrounds often leave behind a more fragmented record. What connects these three projects is precisely this incompleteness: the families’ visual legacies are scattered, filled with gaps, raising more questions than they can answer. Archival research can help to unravel some mysteries, but despite all efforts, uncertainty still endures.
Elina Heikka
