I photographed my giraffe in London Zoo which I loved so much as a child. The avenue of bauhinias on... Read More
I photographed my giraffe in London Zoo which I loved so much as a child. The avenue of bauhinias on the kibbutz is a beautiful sight, i know in my mind, but in my heart those trees are part of local flora that I disliked even if just because it replaced that of my home. Flowers and trees seem to set inside me along with the times they are part of. They are coloured by the Gulf war and the sudden death of my mother, leaving 4 small children and our father in a land foreign to me and a language I didn't know. My name stood out, Sofie, in a kibbutz in the Negev of Israel. Those years were a massive trauma for me and I am coming to the realisation that I will continue to carry it with me until my last day on this earth. The change of cultures, skies, food and languages, swapping my immediate family and mother with the collective of the kibbutz, where you were not allowed to have personal property (and hardly your own children until not long before that). War and Collective were abstract ideas I did not know anything about. There are realities in which little girls do not grow up with wars and death. I will begin talking about it from here, from my giraffe and bougainvillea that I don't care for also. I believe you can love by proxy and my sister Ella loves the bauhinia, I love her. So there might still be a chance for me to be able to see it without feeling how it is hurting me. I cut and paste together images which I took, from archives and old photographs, to a series of collages, islands of assembled memeories in a vast sea.