A Story of ‘Not-me’ Possessions

Based on the need to reconstruct an emotional bond for preservation, an image extracted from memory is constructed as a portrait. The purpose is to materialise an idealised concept of people I spent my childhood with and myself, in the anticipation of a gradual decathexis caused by growing up. Just like Donald Winnicott’s transitional objects, I clinged to these portraits as my possessions providing myself with psychological confort caused by the anxiety of entering adulthood. The model then becomes an object constructed from a memory; the photographed characters bring a story in line with the image of memory but enriched by an imaginative link. This action of anticipating a detachment of these intimate bonds acquires a symbolic meaning to lessen the pain of loss caused by turning into adulthood.