Echoes of lives

‘Longing is the agony of the nearness of the distant.’

*Heidegger*

In Echoes of lives, I search for what remains when life has moved on. In abandoned rooms, silent furniture, and dulled mirrors, I try to hold on to what is slowly fading. Every curtain, every scratch, every patch of light on the wall feels like a whisper of what once was.

These spaces evoke memories, even though I don’t know whose they are. I imagine who lived here, what was thought, felt, spoken. It is an attempt not to let go of life, to keep listening to echoes of presence. But within that longing lies the realization of how elusive it all is, how everything ultimately dissolves.

To better connect with those vanished lives, I have included myself in the work through self-portraits. In doing so, a personal connection is created between my own presence and the past.

I don’t photograph to document, but to preserve, as if I could briefly delay the act of disappearance through my images.The images hover between holding on and letting go, between presence and absence. Echoes of lives is my way of mourning what disappears, and at the same time, of honoring the mystery of all that once was and now only whispers.

This connects to the ideas of the philosopher Heidegger, who described how our existence is always marked by impermanence. Everything we create or preserve is temporary.