I see it feelingly | Noemi
Watching Over Me Outtake, 2020 – from the series 28 Days Self Portraits
A few days ago, a friend and I were getting carried away in our conversation about politics, until I realised that I couldn’t claim these views as my own, as they were for the most part a legacy from my father.
Nap Time, portrait of my father, 2014
Everything in my life, from my political opinions to my atheism to how I clean the kitchen counter is shaped by other people. The books I have read, the art I have seen, the stories I have heard, all of these influence my view of the world. I put toilet paper on seats in public places because my grandmother, who I only met three times, once told me this was ‘essential’. The strange consequence is that this woman who I hardly knew is on my mind every other day of my life because of that one little piece of advice. It doesn’t matter whether she really meant it was ‘essential’ or maybe only said it in passing: the story stuck, and I myself have passed it along.
Lessons, 2020 – from the series 28 Days Self Portraits
I am fascinated by how we are shaped by the people and stories we encounter, but also how partial any storytelling is. We are the sum of our memories, real or imagined, ours or borrowed.
Out of this interest, and an awareness of time passing, I started jotting down vignettes, little stories I could recall, like when my mother filled her suitcase with water bottles when she visited Moscow for the first time. There was no real plan, I just felt a need to collect stories. Eventually I wanted the emotion that the objects would conjure and figured I could re-enact these stories one day through photography. I have since accumulated - among other things - vintage Repetto ballet slippers, colourful block puzzle games, and the drawing of a bear by a friend’s four-year-old. I still have not found the small flowery fabric suitcase my mother used to lug everywhere.
Self Portrait Outtake, 2020 – Collage from the series 28 Days Self Portraits. Only after completing the project did I remember I had done a similar portrait when I was seventeen
My father used to say that I was like the moon, there would always be some hidden mysterious sides he couldn’t know. Somehow this story above all others clicked, and now that he is no longer here the stories keep him alive.
“If I could have anything I wanted, I would choose a story without end” says the main character in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Writing and photographing are ways for me to turn the end on its tail, to keep the stories living on and on ...
Some friends came to the house with their elderly dog last year. As I was watching Joey sleep, without sound or movement, I started to wonder. It struck me that the only thing that told me he was alive was his belly rising up and down, ever so softly. If that movement stopped, that was it. Lack of motion, any motion, is death. But that’s what a photograph is, a moment, seized, without movement, but in a strange way, it is the opposite. It is a portal to eternity.
Larry Sultan in Pictures from Home writes “I realize that beyond the rolls of film and the few good pictures, the demands of my project and my confusion about its meaning, is the wish to take photography literally. To stop time. I want my parents to live forever.”
It's like a bird. If it stops flapping its wings it falls. I keep shooting so as not to fall.
And because it’s this time of year, happy birthday Papa Cat.
Self Portrait, 1981 – Collage
NB: On the heath, Lear asks Gloucester how he sees the world. Gloucester, who is blind, answers: 'I see it feelingly.'
[Shakespeare, King Lear]
by Noemi
My name is Noemi/Naomi, I am a seeker, explorer, hunter, finder, and collector of emotions, images, and words. Art for me is both a very private affair, and an invitation to participate in my photographs, to play. There is often something absent (gone? missing? forgotten?) in my landscapes, and partially obscured in the portraits. At one point in time there was “more” here. Now an empty basketball court, at some point someone was playing, a ball went through the hoop. There will be a time where this will happen again. So, this is both absence but also presence. An interim, a living proof.
Before Bedtime Story, portrait by my father, 1968-69
Tasch, king of felines, named Natasha until my father realized it was a boy, photo by my father
My father and his bear at two years old. Sadly, the name of the bear is lost in time
Watching Over Me, 2020 – from the series 28 Days Self Portraits