Whispers
For the last few years, on my yearly travel to Brazil to be with my mother, I started taking pictures of her, a labor of love. In October 2021, she turned 97 years old, and before my travel, I started feeling the urge to make a photo project of her. I had no idea how to put it together or how to make it happen, but to my surprise, it was done and printed in less than two months.
This is a loving meditation on my aging mother. A woman with so many contradictions, she is the person who shaped me the most into the person I am today, but even after all these years, I still don't fully understand her.
It was daunting to capture the essence of someone I love in a photograph, but it was also a thoughtful exercise to figure her out. I would be by her side for hours, listening to her stories, caring for her, feeding her, and sleeping with her. Immersing myself in her daily routine.
I became very conscious of her vulnerability at this moment in her life. Those were intimate and meaningful moments yet emotionally exhausting. I wanted to feel what she was going through and the silence that falls on and around the very old.
WHISPERS is an immersive introspection into the world of my mother, fragments of her final years; it's a personal project, yet it speaks of universal subjects - unconditional love, the slow passing of time, the abiding feeling of loneliness that comes with the finitude of late old age.
To see the complete project, please follow this link.
On the evening of November 14th, 2022, my beloved mother unexpectedly passed away, holding my hands.
