Another swallow

It all started with a family album on the maternal side. Thanks to him, I became interested in genealogy. There is a sad genealogical assumption that the signs of the existence of an ordinary person completely disappear after three generations. Therefore, I received an inner impulse — to preserve the legacy, to give the people in the old pictures a word as an opportunity to continue their lives. It became important for me to study the themes of continuity and postmemory — the process of transferring traumatic experience through generations. Thus was born the exploration of my own identity through the past. Who am I, what is my purpose, how can I influence this world…

The continuity of generations is a link between the past, present and future, it is the transfer of knowledge to descendants in conversations and at the genetic level. The idea of oneself, thanks to this, is formed in childhood. I see how shaky it is in our family. Groping threads between generations is impossible. I rely on a silent archive with cards, the memories of my mother and grandmother, who is rapidly developing dementia, as well as their complicated relationship. “Another swallow,” my great—grandmother used to say when I was born, because she called my mother a swallow.

My method is intuitive. I look at the nature surrounding my ancestors, I observe the female line, including myself and my daughter. I study historical memory on a national scale and look for clues about myself on archival footage. My goal is not to break ties with the past, no matter how traumatic it may be, but to pass on my knowledge to future generations.