Growing up in a family of 5 kids can be a funny trigger of curiosity and attention from people around. I always enjoyed it and to my shame felt a bit proud. Family has always been my solid foothold, unconditional support source and most of all a safe place. Me and my 4 older brothers had a pretty free-willed childhood, mostly spent in the apartment on the 18th floor of a famous City Gates residential building in Chisinau.
[ sem’ya ]
Family (from Latin: familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship).
I remember suspiсiously many details from my early years, and that’s the only thing I “blame” for my oldest brother Vlad. In his teenage years he dared to take a Zenit in his hands and started shooting our family everyday life. Now I can’t really say which memories are real and which are reconstructed through photographs he made. But when Vlad passed away 3 years ago, I couldn’t find a better way to deal with pain than returning to these photographs. To my surprise I found many rolls of film that had never been printed, his work took on a new life.
.
.
.
That’s how I felt the urge to continue what he started. Now the same mazes of corridors witness my nephews growing when visiting their grandparents and cat named Michael Scofield. We all are now after our 30’s and most of my brothers are scattered around the world or are about to, and this roaring life will never happen again. My attachment to the apartment, memories and desire to embrace the separation has transformed into a visual response – kind of a continuation of family archive, a tribute to my brother who is no longer with us, to concrete walls, to my big but departing from each other family.
