KINDERWUNSCHANA CASAS BRODA
Book published by Hydra in co-publication
with La Fábrica publishing house, FOTOGRÁFICAMX and CONACULTA and KUNST
Kinderwunsch is a book where text and photos construct a narrative that explores the complexity of the experience of motherhood. Its backbone is this constantly changing weave of the relationships between my children and myself in the process of becoming a mother and the construction of their identity. As in my previous works, the body and the home are central to the project.
Kinderwunsch has been running for seven years and has become an increasingly complex project. We built scenarios in which actions take place. Sometimes they were my children's ideas, sometimes images that came from my fantasies. The picture depends on the action and is always a discovery.
I am interested in working with experiences from the frontier between the everyday and the actions that are performed for the camera. Photography as a vital form of intervention in reality, the tension between recreated action and spontaneity as a space that reveals essential aspects of relationships. Photography as a search for appearances of a reality that is not always visible. I am fascinated by the threshold between reality and its image in which photography moves, that enigmatic space that eludes interpretation, singular for each spectator.
Mnemosyne
... Kinderwunsch, children and desire. The desire to have children. The intensity of affection, passion, depression. Desire as an inward and outward journey at the same time. A vital process.
Memory, recollection, the present, the past and the future are analogous to photography and play a vital role in Ana Casas's work. Ana has great insight into the power of the medium, and uses it as a tool to trigger memories and to consolidate them in the future. She understands that time is closely related to memory and that in this fact lies the true power of the medium. The tide that comes and goes between the two, and the precarious instant in the present, are vital elements in understanding Kinderwunsch's texts and nuances.
This project is a delicate balancing act between different times, none more important than the other. In an attempt to create a balance between them, Ana generates work to make the journey as vital as it needs to be. And she needs to drag it into the present. She takes photographs to make her memories and the present real. The photographs here are a cathartic tool, softening her journey into motherhood and soothing her childhood. They form part of the photographic jigsaw that helps Ana reconcile her memories with her desires. Desires that correspond to both the girl and the woman.
Kinderwunsch can only coexist with words and photographs together. Both languages support each other; words fill in the blanks, when there are no photographs; photographs, in turn, expand the words. Their words are urgent, they give impulse and order to the photographs. They sew the past, present, memories, desire and love together.
Kinderwunsch may be specific to Ana and her life, but it also transcends the personal and becomes universal. Like the very best photography, this project not only allows her to consider who she is and why, but it also gives us space to reflect and weave in our own experiences, memories, fantasies and narratives.
Susan Bright (excerpt)
TEXTS:
Ana Casas Broda
Susan Bright
